Mysterious Island

[See the updates to this story.]

A recent front-page story in the Chicago Tribune told of three cyclists who became lost in the woods around Skokie Lagoons. After dark, they abandoned their bikes and began hiking. Eventually, they called for help on their cellphones. The Glencoe and Cook County Forest Preserve police responded with nine squad cars, according to the Trib. The three were eventually rescued by raft, around 1:30 a.m. (They reclaimed their bikes the next day.)

Always willing to gloat over other people's misfortunes, and never have been lost in the woods, even briefly (not too recently, anyway), CLONK snidely advertised the Skokie Division map on this site. Then uncertainty set in. The map from the Cook County Forest Preserve District didn't quite do justice to the lay of the land. From the Tribune story, the three must have gotten lost on the large island between Dundee and Tower Roads.

The map on the left below is taken from the Forest Preserve District map, while the one on the right is from the corresponding USGS topo map. Dundee Road is on the top in both maps, with Tower Rd at the bottom.

The FPD map has one big problem. It shows two big islands in this part of the lagoon. The topo map correctly shows it as one big island, and also shows several small islands.


Cook County Forest Preserve District Map	USGS 1:24,000 Highland Park Quadrant, 1993

The big island definitely does have two parts. The connection between the north and south is a kind of saddle-shaped gully. (Just checked this out 7/9/00 to be sure.) The connection looks like it might have been an afterthought, but it's nothing like the large stretch of water on the FPD map.

The FPD map also differs from the topo map in many other ways. But the 1993 topo map may not reflect the changes as a result of dredging a few years ago. It shows the trail on the west side of the lagoon heading more or less straight south. But the trail now detours around a hill created out of the dredged material. No sign of the detour or the hill on either map.

Both maps get only two out of three "obstructions" right. The FPD map shows the two dams -- on at "Voltz Rd.", the other just north of Tower Rd. (Since Voltz Rd. stops on the other side of the Edens Expressway, it's also called the "Glencoe" dam on some maps.) But the FPD doesn't show the earthern dike that's the main access to island. (Unless you have a boat, or waterproof shoes and a a good sense of balance.)

The topo map shows the dike, and even has a dotted line showing the trail. But it manages to miss the Voltz Rd. dam.

The Chicago Paddling/Fishing Pages includes pictures and coordinates for all three obstructions on the "dams and obstructions" page under "Lakes with Dams". The discussion of the "earth dike/culvert" includes a mention of the fact that the island was once a Nike missile base.

The FPD map does have some redeeming qualities. For one thing, it shows two small chunks of forest preserve land west of the Edens. One of these chunks corresponds to a blank spot on the topo map (just south of the cluster of building with the "12" next to them. The FPD and the topo map seem to disagree on the shape and location of the chunk just north of Tower Rd. This chunk may have once been the Nike command center -- with the launch facility being located on the island.

This story deserves further investigation. Were the forest preserve maps deliberately altered to protect Cold War secrets? What about those little patches of green west of the Edens? Well, don't hold you breath, but a further update may follow before the end of summer.

In the mean time, check out the Skokie Division information at this site from the Cook County Forest Preserve District, and the Skokie Lagoons page at chicagopaddling.org.

Update 7/11/00: doing a little web research, the Nike battery in the Skokie Lagoons area was designated "C-93". There were a few tantalizing clues on Ed Thelen's Nike Missile Web Site. Ed Thelen was a technician at another Chicago-area site, C-41, located in Jackson Park. Ed's (web) site contains a complete list of all Nike sites in Illinois, and also a not-fully-legible map of Nike sites in the Chicago-Milwaukee area.

Send questions and suggestions to CLONK.