Lowden State Park
| Lowden State Park | |
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IUCN category III (natural monument or feature)
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Black Hawk Statue viewed from Illinois Route 2
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| Location | Ogle County, Illinois, USA |
| Nearest city | Oregon, Illinois |
| Coordinates | 42°01′56″N 89°19′35″W / 42.03222°N 89.32639°WCoordinates: 42°01′56″N 89°19′35″W / 42.03222°N 89.32639°W |
| Area | 207 acres (84 ha) |
| Established | 1945 |
| Governing body | Illinois Department of Natural Resources |
Lowden State Park is an Illinois state park on 207 acres (84 ha) in Ogle County, Illinois, United States. The park was named after Governor Frank Orren Lowden. Governor Lowden had served Illinois during World War I. Lowden State Park is home to the Black Hawk Statue, by artist Lorado Taft. Lowden State Park was closed to the public due to budget cuts from November 30, 2008 until February 26, 2009.
425 million years ago the Trenton Sea formed the rock base of the area around Lowden State Park, stretching north into Wisconsin. The Galena-Platteville Aquifer's spring water in the area travels south from Platteville and Glenwood, Wisconsin through layers of rocks into northern Illinois. Native Americans inhabited the region prior to European settlement and they kept the trees burnt off the stone bluffs to keep their roots from splitting the rock. When the earliest European settlers arrived they found groves of trees in the hollows, ravines, and lowlands near the river, which was where they built their first homes.
Chicago attorney and patron of the arts Wallace Heckman purchased the land that would eventually become the Eagle's Nest Colony and Lowden State Park in 1898. American sculptor Lorado Taft and his peers were searching for a location for their summer retreat, first locating in Bass Lake, Indiana and then looking toward Wisconsin, but Heckman invited the group to his home in Ogle County for the Fourth of July. Heckman offered to let the group set up camp there and they signed a lease for the site the same week. The Eagle's Nest Art Colony was then founded in 1898 by Taft on the bluffs flanking the east bank of the Rock River, overlooking Oregon, Illinois. The colony was populated by Chicago artists, all members of the Chicago Art Institute or the University of Chicago art department. The colony remained at the site from its founding until 1942, six years after Taft's death.
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