In the village of Winfield in DuPage County, Illinois, there is a prehistoric burial ground that is 1,000 years old. It is called Winfield Mounds, and it is nestled in the forest preserve of the same name.
I’ve been going to Winfield Mounds, and taking nature pictures there for years. A favorite thing to do is stand on the bridge over the DuPage River and take the same exact panorama shots from the exact same place in different seasons, different time of the day, and in different weather conditions.
But the place is called Winfield Mounds for a reason– the mounds. And I had yet to see them, despite looking all over and following signs to the best of my ability. There are lots of great resources on the Web for info on the mounds (like this article from Chicago Wilderness Magazine), but no explicit instructions on getting there.
Last week, with the help of Jack MacRae, an awesome dude and an informed naturalist with the DuPage County Forest Preserve, I found the Winfield Mounds, and I’d like to document how to get there.
First, here’s the instructions he gave me over the phone, which were remarkable in their nature-specificity:
Take the Illinois Prairie Path from Winfield road, and follow the limestone path to the “T” in the path. There’s a plaque there about the mounds. Go left about a hundred yards to a clearing with a wood-chip path. Go right there, down the path. You walk through a meadow. At the end of the meadow, near the river, you’re at the base of a slowly rising hill. There are beautiful oals and hickories. There used to be a lot of buckthorn and honeysuckle there. Go up the slow grade, parallel to the river. It levels off, and the path veers to the right. More buckthorn there, and the path narrows. There is black raspberry and golden rod there. After a while, you come to another clearing, and another plaque describing the mounds. There you are.
If you’re in a hurry, this is all you really need– his directions plus this map I made with the trail marked out.
So now, here’s an annotated photographic look at my folowing of his directions. If you want to get some more details and pics, read on.
Enter the Prairie Path on Winfield Road at Providence Lane.
Here’s the view of the corner of Providence Lane and Winfield Road.
Here’s the little path to the Prairie Path. Just bop up there.
Once you’re on the Prairie Path, it’s smooth sailing for a while. Nice cinder path.
Cross the bridge:
And just keep following the limestone path. There lots to see in the meadow– often deer and always invasives:
The next thing (and the first confusing moment) is when you get to the “T” in the path:
And the first explanatory sign about the mounds:
As you can see, it says, that the mounds are about a “third of a mile”, but it doesn’t tell you which direction. Turn left here and keep going down the limestone:
Go about 100 yards and you come to a fork in the road. Go right.
After a teensy while you end up walking through an awesome meadow. This is a great place for bird watching.
As you can see, it’s just a meadow with a tractor-wide mow path.
Towards the end of the meadow, you see the first of the black raspberry bushes the guy was talking about:
Then you go right, and sure enough, there’s a gentle slope:
Go for a while, and you’ll see you’re right along the river:
This squirrel scurried and scared me, so I snapped him:
Then there’s more black raspberry bushes (which is not to say I knew what they looked like– I googled to see what a black raspberry leaf looks like, and these are them):
Go right at this set of bushes and you run right into the mounds:
Boom. There they are. Humans from 1010 made this. Pretty cool.
So there you have it– that is how to find the Winfield Mounds Prehistoric Site in the DuPage County Forest Preseve in Winfield, IL.
Here’s the complete set of photos, including a map of the pictures along the path. After I took these documentary shots, I went all tilt-shifty, so here they are.