| October 2020 |
Park’s Beauty Being Destroyed by Overwhelming Visitors.
Starved Rock State Park is a treasure for our state but it is being destroyed by an overwhelming number of visitors. According to the president of the park’s volunteer group, attendance at the park rank it in eleventh place nation-wide for park visitation after Glacier National Park and ahead of Joshua Tree National Monument. Hundreds of thousands of people a month visit Starved Rock State Park. It has over two million visitors a year. Cars can be lined up parked on both sides of the state highway to the park for 2 ½ miles on popular weekends. At times, lines of cars to the park have backed up miles to the Interstate 80 exit.
The number of visitors has taken a serious toll on the trails and ecosystems of the park. State budget cuts and lack of staffing combined with challenges during the COVID pandemic have meant that trail maintenance and park restoration cannot keep up with visitor use.
This park is in the northeastern corner of the fifteen county Heart of Illinois Group territory. It needs our help! Please consider making a donation to the park friends group, which helps fund trail and other needed projects. Write a letter to your state legislators and ask them to take action to provide more staff and funding for the park. Action must be taken to control the number of cars and visitors so the safety of the public and the park itself can be protected.