14 THE AUDUBON “BUD baie 
THE GOOSE-LAKE PRAIRIE: 
A BIRTHDAY PRESENT FOR ILLINOIS? 
by ROBERT F. BETZ 
Department of Biology 
Northeastern Illinois State College, Chicago 
It has been 150 years since our state was admitted into the Union—150 years 
of continuous progress in agriculture, commerce and industry but also 150 
years of continuous destruction of our native flora and fauna. 
It is hard to realize that in 1818 the northern and central parts of 
Illinois were almost entirely covered by prairies with forests confined to 
relatively small strips along the rivers and streams or in groves of various 
sizes. Almost all of the early explorers and travelers to the Illinois country 
commented on the beauty of the prairie landscape with its abundance of 
beautiful flowers and myriads of unusual insects and colorful birds. Many a 
pioneer farmer must have felt a pang of remorse as his plows, pulled by 
three or four yoke of oxen, broke and turned over the virgin prairie sod. 
For thousands of years after the last ice age, the prairies were undis- 
turbed. They were able to take the trampling and grazing of the herds 
of bison and elk, the diggings of badgers and gophers, and the annual fires 
that swept over them. But when the prairie farmers came in the 1830’s, 
the prairies were unable to survive the plowing of the virgin sod and 
the overgrazing by domestic animals. With the exception of a few narrow 
strips of prairie along some railroads, small patches in the corners of 
old cemeteries, and a few isolated tracts on relatively inaccessible hills or 
protected from the plow by intervening strips of marshland, the prairies 
of Illinois, “The Prairie State,” are gone. 
If the Goose-Lake Prairie, which is east of Morris, is made into a 
“Prairie State Park,” the people of Illinois will still have an opportunity 
to see an Illinois prairie. That prairie is about 1,800 acres (approximately 
one and one-half miles square) and is relatively flat with some slight 
undulations. This flatness resulted because in glacial times most of Grundy 
County was covered by a shallow glacial lake (Lake Morris), and the land 
upon which the prairie now stands was on the bottom of the lake. Goose 
Lake, now reduced to a marshy area because of previous draining, is a 
remnant of this large glacial lake. 
The prairie area contains over 200 species of plants including such 
rarities as the lead plant (Amorpha canescens), prairie gentian (Gentiana 
puberula), ladies’ tresses orchid (Spiranthes cernua), and purple prairie 
clover (Petalostemum purpureum). Furthermore, the dominant prairie 
grasses such as big bluestem grass (Andropogon gerardi), switch grass 
(Panicum virgatum), and bluejoint grass (Calamagrostis canadensis) are 
abundant. Although it has been grazed in the past, the prairie should revert 
toward its primeval condition and increase in richness and beauty, under 
proper management, i.e., removal of domestic animals and controlled 
annual burning. 
