The Lonely Old Sugar Maple

In 1820, before any Europeans had settled down in Barbers’ Corners or anywhere around here, Illinois was about two thirds prairie land – no trees, just miles and miles of waving grasses. Trees could be found in small groves around rivers, streams, lakes, and isolated places here and there. But by 1900, the prairie had almost entirely been plowed […]

The Disappeared Houses

On a walk last month, Adam and I noticed a memorial plaque under a tree… for a street address. Curious. (If you want to go find it, it’s along Lily Cache Greenway between Orchard and Plainview.) When we got home I searched for “109 Arcadia Court” on Google Maps and a little red tag popped […]

The Bolingbrook Memorial Tree Program

How does a human settlement become more than land with houses on it? How do people start to merge the story of their lives and relationship with the ground they live on? One of the ways humans mark ground with stories is by making graves. Farming families started digging graveyards in the Bolingbrook area almost […]