continue
tour:
Morris
Area | Joliet
Scenic area
Starting at the locktender’s house in Channahon, you are traveling
along one of the most scenic stretches of the canal. Although peaceful
and serene today, this stretch of the canal was once a lively, bustling
place with canal boats
loaded down with corn, merchandise or lumber. Today, Channahon,
McKinley Woods, Dresden
and Aux Sable are all I&M Canal Trail
access points, providing hiking and bicycling along the I&M Canal
with views of the rivers and rolling landscape.
The nation’s breadbasket
In the 1830s, the newly invented steel plow made it possible for settlers
to turn over the tough Illinois prairie. In Will and Grundy Counties,
farmers were able to cultivate some of the nation’s richest farmland.
When the I&M Canal opened in 1848, the corn, wheat, barley and oats
they grew could be shipped by canal to Chicago and on to other grain markets.
Grundy County continues to have some of the nation’s most fertile
soil, and is a major producer of corn and soybeans.
Surviving woodlands
Early settlers found vast prairies interspersed with by groves of trees
along the rivers. Many of these groves provided building materials for
towns, and few survive today. At McKinley Woods Forest Preserve, where
the I&M Canal flows next to the Illinois River, the landscape changes
dramatically as wooded ravines extend to the riverbanks. Just west of
here, the Des Plaines and Kankakee Rivers converge to form the Illinois.
Changing land uses
Some I&M Canal towns disappeared when the railroads bypassed this
area. Look for the canal landmarks that remain in Channahon, Aux Sable
and Dresden. Note how land uses have changed continually. The prairies
and woodlands gave way to farm fields in the 1800s. Today, in the Channahon
area, agricultural land is rapidly giving way to suburban residential
development. Industries that needed buffer areas around their plants found
the wide-open spaces appealing in the last half of the twentieth century.
Among the major employers in the area today are various chemical and petrochemical-processing
industries, and the Dresden Nuclear Power Plant.
©2002 Canal Corridor Association