Kankakee River State Park

Kankakee River State Park, situated in close proximity to Bourbonnais Illinois healthcare and Bourbonnais hospital, is surely an unspoiled healthy paradise which continues to be treasured for many a long time. it absolutely was 1st settled from the Native us citizens who inhabited the area then later on by farmers and traders and now by hikers, campers, bicyclists, anglers, hunters, and canoeists. The Kankakee River, a effortlessly channeled stream outlined from the Federal thoroughly clean Streams Register, would be the focal level of your park's attractiveness.

One of your well known sights of your 1890's was the Custer Bowery Amusement Park, which introduced guests from Chicago. The park lasted as a result of the 1st earth War, but by that time the river had previously turn into a well known location for summer time cottages. The spot grew to become far more available for vacationers when roads have been created along the two financial institutions of your river in 1928. 10 a long time later on Chicagoan Ethel Sturges Dummer donated thirty-five acres of land to build a state park. Commonwealth Edison extra practically two thousand acres far more for the park in 1956 and granted more land for the park in 1989. on the existing time Kankakee State River Park includes about four,000 acres and envelopes the two financial institutions of your Kankakee River for eleven miles and it is bounded by Illinois Route 113 about the south facet and Illinois Route 102 about the north. Interstate highways 55 and 57 offer practical accessibility for the park in the neighborhood communities of Kankakee, Bradley, and Bourbonnais healthcare.

A range of prehistoric websites are observed in Kankakee River State Park. The Native American inhabitants of your place on the time once the 1st Europeans arrived within the 1670's have been Miami and Illini Indians. The Miami have been the greater group, so the Kankakee River was initially named the River of your Miami. Mascouten and Kickapoo also inhabited the area in the late 1670's til the 1760's and Potawatomi Indians hunted in this particular place from the later on date. from the 1770's the Potawatomi, Chippewa, and Ottawa nations, identified since the 3 Fires, have been dominant within the area. The most significant village was identified as Rock Village, and was situated within the existing day park not much in the mouth of Rock Creek. The very last of your fantastic Indian Councils was held right here in 1830. In 1832, immediately after the Black Hawk War, the Potawatomi have been compelled to cede all of their land which lay along the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers for the U.S. authorities. a majority of the Potawatomi abandoned the place together with the exception of Chief Shaw-waw-nas-see, whose tomb is marked by a boulder which lies along Rock Creek nature trail.

In the 1820's French fur trades such as Noel Le Vasseur, Hubbard Chabare, and Francois Bourbonnais traded together with the Potawatomi who lived along the Iroquois and Kankakee Rivers. once the Potawatomi abandoned the area in 1838, Le Vasseur termed on French Canadians from Quebec to emigrate for the place of Bourbonnais Township. hence he earned the identify "Father of Kankakee". William Baker and also other settlers also commenced farming the valley of your Kankakee River in 1831, as well as the log-cabin village of Rockville was founded in 1840. The Kankakee and Iroquois Navigation Co. was chartered in 1847 to offer a navigable waterway in the Illinois and Michigan Canal so far as Warner's Landing on existing day Warner Bridge Rd. This organization went bankrupt once the Wabash Railroad arrived as a result of within the early 1880's. Hand-cut pillars of limestone nonetheless stand on the Chippewa Campground exactly where a railroad bridge was to are already erected ahead of the railroad ran from money.