Panther Den Wilderness

Panther Den Wilderness
IUCN category Ib (wilderness area)
Runoff of Devil's Kitchen Lake
Location	Union County, Illinois, USA
Nearest city	Goreville, Illinois
Coordinates	37°35′34″N 89°04′30″W / 37.592778°N 89.075°W / 37.592778; -89.075Coordinates: 37°35′34″N 89°04′30″W / 37.592778°N 89.075°W / 37.592778; -89.075
Area	1,195 acres (484 ha)
Established	1990 (1990)
Governing body	U.S. Forest Service

The Panther Den Wilderness is a 1,195-acre (4.84 km²) parcel of land listed as a Wilderness Area of the United States. It is located within the Shawnee National Forest in Union County in the U.S. state of Illinois. Panther Den Wilderness is the smallest of eight Wilderness areas in Illinois. The other seven are Bald Knob Wilderness, Bay Creek Wilderness, Burden Falls Wilderness, Clear Springs Wilderness, Crab Orchard Wilderness, Garden of the Gods, and Lusk Creek Wilderness. All Illinois Wilderness areas are located in Southern Illinois.

We are living in a time of "...increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization," that is why it is important that individual play a role in helping to "secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness" as called for by the Congress of the United States through the Wilderness Act of 1964. Thanks to the Wilderness Act the Panther Den became a Wilderness Area on November 28, 1990. According to Public Law 101-633 Congress legislated 940 acres to the Panther Den Wilderness.

As with other wilderness areas within Shawnee National Forest, the Panther Den Wilderness is made of second-growth forested areas that were used, until the land condemnations of the 1930s, as agriculture land. The United States Forest Service manages much of the wilderness; the agency describes it as a land of "homestead[s], fruit trees, cemeteries, and abandoned roads."