Weekend Explorer

Winfield Mounds

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DuPage County, IL

Amid the congestion and sprawl of DuPage County, it’s easy to forget about our region’s early residents. But there is one place where one can glimpse that distant human past. At Winfield Mounds Forest Preserve, on the western side of the county, are three prehistoric burial mounds near the site of an ancient village. Here, along a bluff about 40 feet above the west branch of the DuPage River, hunter-gatherers first made their homes more than 2,000 years ago.

The river that drew those human inhabitants also serves as the centerpiece of this preserve, which is home to a variety of flora and fauna. It is an important wildlife corridor in a greenbelt that extends north to the Timber Ridge preserve and Kline Creek Farm and south to West DuPage Woods, according to Scott Kobal, ecologist with the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County.

Trails lead hikers through varied landscapes reflecting history and local events. The oak plantings set in rows along Winfield Road were part of the district’s 1970s-era reforestation efforts. Where the trail crosses the river, a large bottomland with bent foliage shows evidence of September’s floods. West of the river, the trail winds through a prairie of head-high big bluestem and Indian grass and leads into an oak-hickory savanna. Hikers would do well to wear a hat in autumn when the shagbark hickories shed their harvest with a hail of clattering nuts. The area is popular with birders looking for waterfowl, seasonal migrants such as warblers, resident woodpeckers, and the Cooper’s hawks that hunt there.

The site’s three dome-shaped mounds are the only known prehistoric burial sites in the county. Arranged in a triangular pattern, they rest in a bucolic, wooded area. The area was never farmed, and, according to forest preserve naturalist Jack MacRae, still looks much like it must have in prehistoric times. The site is far from undisturbed, though. Vandals trashed the mounds in the early part of the 20th century; later excavations by archaeologists also dismantled some of the mounds. (They turned up only shards of pottery and a single burial bundle that disintegrated upon disinterment.)

Researchers have determined that there were two occupations of hunter-gatherers. The first was during the Middle Woodland Period, dating from about 50 BC to 400 AD. The second was the Late Woodland Period, dating from 800 AD to at least 1000 AD, which is the era when the mounds were constructed.

Visitors hoping for a spectacular view, though, might be disappointed. The three mounds, which are marked by a sign, are smallish humps and hard to make out, and the village site is not marked at all. That’s why MacRae conducts periodic hikes to the site, a happy task, he says, because “this is one of my favorite places in DuPage County.”

For a schedule of hikes to Winfield Mounds, call (630) 933-7200.

— LeAnn Spencer