Churchill Woods Forest Preserve

Churchill Woods Forest Preserve is in Glen Ellyn. It has a woodland habitat and a grassland habitat that is home for many different animals, including mammals, birds, fish and reptiles.

Click to keep reading.

The Forest Preserve District of DuPage County bought the first portion of Churchill Woods from Eliza Churchill in 1935. They kept buying land for this preserve as it came up for sale. The final large portion of land, which included the 65-acre prairie on the north side of St. Charles Road, was acquired or bought in 1968.

Some of the large white oak trees in the preserve date back to the 1830’s. The 1830’s was a time when settlers left the baby tree seedlings untouched as they logged the big, mature oak trees. They cut down the trees mainly to build new, wooden roads for their wagons to ride on.

Before the settlers came and cut the trees for roads, a community of about 500 Potawatomi Indians lived in the place where Churchill Woods Forest Preserve is located. These Native American Indians waited there for the United States government to send them west to some reservation land.

In 1834, Winslow and Mercy Churchill left Syracuse, N.Y. searching for rich farmland. They traveled by boat and wagon until they came to a trail through the grassy prairie that would later become St. Charles Road.

The Churchill family settled on the western edge of what is now Churchill Woods Forest Preserve. They chose a home site along the East Branch of the DuPage River. Oak trees were felled to build a log cabin, and the large Churchill family settled down to farm. Their land stretched from present-day Route 53/Interstate355 on the east, North Avenue on the north, Main Street in Glen Ellyn on the west, and Crescent Boulevard on the south. This is a lot of land for one family to farm.

The Churchill cabin

Felled means “cut down.”

Click on the star to go back.

Preserves means to keep safe and protect from harm or destruction. A Forest Preserve is land that is protected and safe so that in the future itcan not be built up with houses, roads or businesses. The land is preservedso that people can enjoy the natural beauty of the trees, grasses,rivers, lakes and that the animals can have safe habitats to live in also.

Click to go back