Trail Stories...Old and New

The Jane Addams Recreation Trail in Northwest Illinois is a journey through time...rich with stories.

Each journey on the trail is a new story and a new experience with the ever-changing seasonal plant life and the varied animals and birds – from the orange flash of an oriole to the white tail of a bounding deer; from the fiery crimson of the sumac to the tender green fiddleheads of the ferns in spring.

The rock layers and topographic features exposed along the trail tell the story of an environment gradually changing from an ancient shallow sea where layers of sea shell fragments and debris accumulated to form the dolomite bedrock, to the rushing glacial stream that carved our valleys.

The trail tells the story of man’s history as well, from the Native Americans, including the Winnebago Tribe who raised crops in the rich bottomland soil and fished and traveled the waterways, to the pioneer families who prospered from this fertile land, to the entrepreneurs who built the frontier’s first factories, the mills, around which villages and cities grew.

The trail’s story continues from the early stagecoaches to the railroads which created a transportation hub in this area, but which were in turn eclipsed by the automobile and our grid of improved streets and highways, to today...

The path, which has seen so much history, has been restored as a source of beauty, nature, exercise and fun. We invite you to create your own stories as you discover the Jane Addams Trail.