Spring 2000

An old railroad right-of-way, now a biking and hiking trail, just happens to have some of the richest and most diverse fragments of our native landscape

Cook and Will Counties, Illinois

On maps, the Old Plank Road Trail shows up as a hiking and biking trail between Joliet and Chicago Heights. But it is much more…

Where the Cherokee Nation has its Trail of Tears, the Chicago region has its trail of blood, sweat, and tears: the Old Plank Road Trail. It's a story of the triumph of love of natural areas over apathy, greed, politics, even verbal abuse.

It began with the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory in 1978 that turned up some of the rarest of prairies — Class A, black soil — along the abandoned railroad tracks of the Penn Central Railroad west of Cicero Avenue. By the early 80s, botanists had mapped wonderful and distinctive prairie remnants, wetlands, and savanna margins along the right-of-way as far west as New Lennox. This was a time when competition for funds to purchase sites was at a white heat. But it was also the time when public interest in bike trails was building. The idea was born that concerned citizens could save these prairies by promoting the construction of a trail on the old cinder ballast of the railroad. Others, however, had their own ideas of what to do with this enticing corridor &endash; and none included prairies.

Yet on July 19, 1997, after almost two decades of unrelenting struggle by hundreds of people, the Old Plank Road Trail was dedicated.

May Theilgaard Watts, the den mother of trails in America and author of Reading the Landscape (see Chicago Wilderness Winter '99, pp. 24-27), would have been so proud. The Trail epitomizes her vision of all a trail can be: a place of exploration, adventure, and discovery in our very backyard; a place where geology, history, and nature can be experienced by people of all ages and interests.

Now the Old Plank Road Trail stretches for 20 miles as a paved bike trail between Chicago Heights and Joliet. The Trail runs just south of and parallel to old US Rte. 30 and can be entered from any cross road.

Along the Trail survive some of the richest and most diverse fragments of our native landscape. Plant communities — from wet to dry and from open prairie to oak woods — thrive in complex matrices. The expected trademark native species are found, but so are rarities like snowy campion, scurfy pea, prairie lily, short green milkweed, savanna blazing star, and silky aster.

Where will one find the best places? Anywhere along the Trail between Cicero Avenue west to New Lennox has interesting pockets of vegetation. The most concentrated remnants are found on the original land survey sites between Cicero and Central Avenues, right under Interstate 57. Just off the Trail west of Central lies the 12-acre Dewey Helmick Nature Preserve. There is also a splendid dry prairie on the right-of-way just west of Central and visitors will find interesting things to see all the way to Ridgeland.

Wolf Road, east, has a deep railroad cut with a July show of pale purple coneflower amid the prairie dropseed. Schmule Road, west, is where friends of the Trail hold an annual Wild Creatures Day. The exceedingly rare prairie cicada buzzes here among small sundrops in June. And keep an eye out for smooth green snakes!

Hickory Creek Junction Park, just west of Wolf Road on the north side of US 30, is a good place to park, lunch, and take off on the Trail in either direction.

For more information and work day schedules, contact the Will County Forest Preserve District at (815) 727-8700.

— George Johnson