Winter 1999

[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB-PUBLISHED MARCH 2002.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: WINTER 1999.]

To Preserve and Protect . . .

By Stephen F. Christy, Jr.

Do Forest Preserves face challenges today?
Just look at what they overcame to get started.

Our northeastern Illinois forest preserves total more than 100,000 acres and represent the largest tract of locally-owned public conservation land in the nation. Their benefits for our environment, recreation and education are incalculable, and they preserve much of Chicago's natural charm which, without their existence, would certainly have been lost to the area's growth.

Of the millions of users of our Forest Preserves today few would believe it took more than 20 years for the dream of the preservation of these lands to become a reality. This magnificent civic accomplishment came about largely through the determined efforts of two great Chicagoans: the architect Dwight Perkins (1867-1941), best remembered today for his visionary designs of many of Chicago's public schools, and the landscape architect Jens Jensen (1860-1951), nationally known for his park designs in Chicago and other cities and a life-long champion of conserving America's landscape. Perkins was level-headed, thorough, and methodical, while Jensen was an outspoken, emotional, and charismatic leader. Together they made a good team for the long work ahead.

As early as 1894 Jensen, from his frequent local wanderings, had sketched a map of lands then far-distant from Chicago that he felt should be preserved for future generations. Perkins himself was constantly urging people to look ahead on Chicago's growth, astounding people in 1902 by claiming:

"Chicago will be a city of 10,000,000 inhabitants within the next 50 years, and when we are planning for the city's future we must take pains not to be so short-sighted as to overlook it. We have a right to dream — if we are wide awake when we do it."

In 1899 a civic group known as the Municipal Science Club, of which Jensen and Perkins were members, began a study of Chicago's current parks and playgrounds. The Club's report led to the Chicago City Council establishing in 1901 a Special Park Commission having a membership of Jensen, Perkins, and other civic leaders as well as aldermen and park commissioners. The report they prepared said, "In the rapid growth of Chicago north, west, and south, thickly settled communities are approaching natural park territory and other extensive open areas which are suitable park sites and could be improved without a great expenditure of money before the rapid march of commercial interests and before suburban settlements efface the beauties of nature and destroy the usefulness of these spaces for parks."

As with most novel ideas, this statement had precedent to lend it strength. The Boston landscape architect, Charles Eliot, had convinced that city to set aside 10,000 acres of outer parks during the 1890s, providing Boston with a total open space system then unsurpassed in the nation. Perkins' wife Lucy, a writer and artist, visited Boston and found this system "...so arranged that parks are accessible from all parts of the city, and it is difficult to think of any Boston child as shut away from the beauties of nature."

"In the rapid growth of Chicago north,
west, and south, thickly settled communities are approaching natural park territory
and other extensive open areas
which are suitable park"

So well-received were the Special Park Commission's recommendations that in 1903 Cook County Board Chairman Henry Foreman formed the Outer Belt Park Commission and charged it with "the creation of an outer belt of parks and boulevards encircling Chicago." At the same time the Special Park Commission, seeing that its concerns for playgrounds and inner-city parks were well on the way to solution, turned to the larger question of the outer parks. These efforts culminated in 1904 with Foreman's publication of The Outer Belt of Forest Preserves and Parkways for Chicago and Cook County. This publication, edited by Perkins and having a lengthy section by Jensen describing the proposed lands, stands today as the culmination of a decade of diligent groundwork by these two men as well as a classic document from Chicago's great age of civic improvement. Contributing to it also were other well-known civic figures, such as Foreman; landscape architect Ossian Simonds, designer of Graceland Cemetery; meat packer Oscar Mayer; and University of Chicago sociologist Charles Zueblin.

Perkins first dealt with the lack of open space in Chicago, concluding that past city growth revealed largely an "enormous waste of treasure, time, and human life due to the lack of forethought and confidence in the city when it was originally planned."

The Commission's report went on to advocate in detail the preservation of those lands which, for many years, had been recognized as "naturally beautiful": a crescent surrounding Chicago, starting at the north in the Skokie and North Branch valleys, passing west of the city along the Des Plaines River, and turning east along the Sag valley to Lake Calumet after embracing the highlands of the Palos.

The second half of the report, written by Jensen, dealt in greater detail with, as he called it, "the movement for acquisition of large forest park areas." He reiterated three great reasons for this enterprise:

• preserve for present and future generations lands of natural scenic beauty situated within easy reach of the multitudes that have access to no other grounds for recreation or summer outings;
  
  
• preserve spots having relation to the early settlements of Chicago which are therefore of historical importance; and,
  
  
• preserve flora in its primeval state for the sake of the beauty of the forest and for the benefit of those desiring knowledge of the plants indigenous there.

"...the woodlands should be brought
within easy reach of all people,
especially the wage earners."

Jensen then followed with a detailed account of the history of Chicago's native landscape and the special significance of each recommended area.

The report was a masterpiece of landscape planning. Based on the then-current beliefs best articulated by landscape architect and planner Frederick Law Olmsted that "rural life has the effect of countering a certain impression of town life," bolstered by exhaustive study of other cities' progress, and steeped in a thorough knowledge of Chicago's native landscape and a passionate hope for the city's future, it opened many eyes. The 3,000 original copies were distributed in a matter of months, yet 12 years would pass before the first acre of land was set aside.

The trouble began in 1905. Foreman's Special Park Commission decided a bill to protect these lands must pass at once, noting how rapidly land values were rising. An Act was thus hastily rammed through the state legislature, one viewed by many supporters as favoring certain political interests at the expense of the overall plan. Incidentally, the term "forest preserve" first appeared in this bill coined not so much to emphasize protecting woods but to avoid accusations of double taxation with existing park districts.

The Special Park Commission and other civic groups opposed this bill, arguing that it would place the administration of the forest preserves in state hands and that there were no provisions for connecting the forest preserves as the original plans had called for.

Nevertheless, Illinois Governor Deneen signed the bill, and it was presented to referendum in November of 1905 where a public favorable to the general idea but unaware of the political machinations behind the bill, passed it. Dismayed, Perkins and his followers prepared to go to court on the grounds that a true majority of voters had not favored the bill. Sensing trouble, Governor Deneen declared the Act inoperative on the advice of his attorney general and refused to appoint the five commissioners required by the Act.

By 1907 the Special Park Commission had prepared its own bill, but this failed to pass due to political infighting. Accordingly in 1909 both houses appointed a "Forest Preserve District and Outer Belt Commission of Illinois" to investigate the entire issue. Perkins and Jensen began their quickly famous "Saturday Afternoon Walking Trips" in which they took this commission, other public leaders, and interested individuals on tours of the proposed system.

The Special Park Commission joined with the Union League Club, the City Club and the Chicago Association of Commerce to form a new and more powerful lobby called the Forest Preserve District Association. This association greatly increased grass roots support and enlisted Daniel Burnham's aid in his now-famous 1909 Plan for Chicago, in which he noted that next in importance to lakefront preservation, "the woodlands should be brought within easy reach of all people, especially the wage earners." All these efforts worked, and a new bill satisfactory to everyone easily passed through the legislature and subsequent referendum. To Perkins, Jensen, and their friends, victory seemed near at hand.

"It was an odd spectacle.
Perkins' suit charged that his own
creation was unconstitutional."

Again, however, politics intervened. Cook County Board Chairman William Busse appointed the five new commissioners — two Democrats and three Republicans — complying with the law that no more than three could come from one party. But Busse and his Republican administration had lost the recent elections and the Democrats regarded these new appointments as rightfully theirs. The Democrats sued to block Busse's action and, although the Circuit Court of Cook County turned back their efforts, the attorney general (aided by lawyers from the Democratic Party) found the forest preserve legislation unconstitutional. In 1911 the Illinois Supreme Court agreed, noting that only those living in incorporated Chicago and Cicero had been able to vote in the referendum.

With that, the forest preserve movement nearly collapsed. The Forest Preserve District Association disbanded, and the Special Park Commission dropped the issue after seeing more than a decade of precious time, and precious lands, slip away. It remained for Perkins alone and a few hardy followers to press the fight. This he did, and in 1914 new legislation had again received approval from downstate and the voters. Perkins immediately challenged the bill himself to test its constitutionality, raising more than $2,000 to take the issue before the Circuit and Supreme Courts in 1915 and 1916.

It was an odd spectacle. Perkins' suit charged that his own creation was unconstitutional, simply in order to get that fight out of the way quickly. The court ruled "against" him, confirming the legality of the forest preserves statute.

At that time the native landscape was the focus of a newly-emerging concept: the science of ecology. Its birthplace was the University of Chicago and its founder the botany professor Henry Chandler Cowles. Cowles' pioneering work over several decades established the concept that a native landscape is really a highly-diverse group of plant communities, the "residents" of each community adapted to one another and the community as a whole requiring specific physical factors — water, light, drainage, fire — to survive and thrive. Cowles' work also revealed what has been confirmed ever since: that the Chicago region is one of the most biologically rich areas in America.

Not since the initial settlement of America some 250 years before had a major urban Society been so close to an original, untouched landscape. By Perkins' time an appreciation of regional landscapes had flowered in America. This appreciation was spawned by the emerging fields of city planning and landscape architecture (best exemplified by Olmsted's monumental creation of Central Park in New York in 1856); the growing recognition of the natural wonders discovered in the opening of the American West; and most ominously by the accelerating ability of industrial technology to alter and destroy the landscape through mechanized means.

What Jensen, Perkins, and other supporters saw around them was an original native landscape still largely untouched since its creation by the last glaciers some 12,000 years before. This was a landscape of prairies, marshes, woodlands, and savannas, shaped by Midwestern climate and the regenerating fires periodically started by lightning or Native Americans.

In 1916, the newly formed Forest Preserve District of Cook County floated a $1,000,000 bond issue and in September of that year purchased its first lands — Deer Grove Forest Preserve. By 1922 the District had purchased 21,500 acres, and was well on its way to exceeding Perkins' original goal of 37,000 acres.

The forest preserve founders clearly sought land for public enjoyment through the many activities we find in the forest preserves today: hiking, cycling, field games, picnics and other pursuits not-then dreamed of. But they sought to provide these activities in an overall landscape preserved as it then existed, and had so for thousands of years. Jensen's vision was perhaps the clearest when he urged the saving of these lands in their "primeval state...for the benefit of those desiring knowledge of the plants indigenous there."

This vision can be seen in the enabling legislation itself which, with words unique in American landscape preservation law, requires the Forest Preserve District to "restore, restock, protect and preserve" these lands "as nearly as may be, in their natural state and condition."

Perkins, Jensen, and others were the first to see the Chicago landscape for what it is: a uniquely Midwestern part of America, as precious as Chicago's social fabric that had taken root in the same ground. Their goal was clear, and presaged the homogenization of America by a century: to preserve for future generations the original native landscape of Chicago, which even then was rapidly disappearing, because it gave strength to a local culture. These founders firmly believed that this landscape was crucial to the spiritual growth of this great Midwestern town, and was an integral part of what makes Chicago a special place to live, work, and play.

Within the first few years, millions of visitors came to the new forest preserves, where the public was allowed to drive or roam at will. People camped in the preserves for months at a time, in some cases making these lands their permanent summer homes.

A police force and regulations were established in 1917.

Sadly, ecology and land management as understood today were in their infancy at the time. Fire in the landscape was feared, and its role in ecology did not become clear until the 1940s through professor John Curtis' pioneering land restoration efforts at the University of Wisconsin. Exotic plant species like buckthorn had yet to arrive, and prolific native trees such as green ash and box elder had yet to expand from their river bottom habitats.

Thus few people noticed the savannas and prairies slowly filling with brush. Few prairies had even been saved to start with. Late in his life, Jensen was asked why this was so. His poignant answer was simple, and harked back decades to when native prairie, like the buffalo, was limitless: "We never thought it would all disappear."

World War II and the ensuing development boom around Chicago left our forest preserves largely forgotten in an era of "hands off" land management. For a time the preserves were even fair game for tollways and other "improvements" of the post-war era. Yet with the arrival of Earth Day and the environmental movement of the 1970s, it was inevitable that a new generation would focus its attention on these landscapes.

Chicago Wilderness is the natural next step in the conservation of a noble heritage.

Stephen F. Christy, Jr., a Chicago resident since 1976, has been the Executive Director of the Lake Forest Open Lands Association since 1985.