Fall 1997

Old-grove forest offers abundant spring wildflowers, Cooper’s hawk, red-shouldered hawk

Will County, Illinois

Messenger Woods, in rural Lockport, is one of Will County’s oldest forest preserve sites — and one of its most unusual. Purchased in a series of tracts in 1930, 1942, 1944, and 1946, the preserve today totals 946 acres. Here visitors can see and enjoy one of the few remaining forests in northeastern Illinois that has not been altered by grazing, cutting or development.

Considered a high-quality, old-grove forest, Messenger Woods has oak uplands and rich maple-basswood-ash-elm bottomlands on a rolling glacial hill terrain. Spring Creek, which runs through the preserve, has cut several steep-sided ravines. Due to the quality of this site, 58 acres in the northwest corner of the preserve were dedicated an Illinois Nature Preserve in 1994.

In addition, Messenger Woods is known throughout the region for its abundance of spring wildflowers that carpet the forest floor (Update: See Letters from Photographers, Summer 2000, about the decline in recent years). Watch the flocks of nature photographers perch over their cameras to capture the blue-eyed Mary, red trillium, white trillium grandiflora, and hepatica in bloom. But the biggest draw are Virginia bluebells, for more appear at Messenger Woods over a few fleeting weeks in May than anywhere else in Will County.

The rare but recovering Cooper’s hawk has consistently nested in the south portion of the preserve, while the state-endangered red-shouldered hawk nests annually on private land just north of the boundary.

Visitors to Messenger Woods can hike or ski along two miles of looped trails and enjoy three picnic shelters and an open playfield. The District also sponsors free nature walks in the woods.

Note: No bicycles are allowed on the trails. Dogs are permitted only on South Trail and in picnic areas and must be on a leash.

For additional information call the Forest Preserve District of Will County’s public information office at (815) 727-8700.

— Bruce Hodgdon, public information naturalist, Forest Preserve District of Will County