McDowell Grove Forest Preserve (Naperville, Illinois)

 park, place with historical importance, nature conservation park / area

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Includes parking area off Raymond Dr. Has 6 miles of trails, connecting to Warrenville Grove Forest Preserve and Illinois Praire Path along West Branch Dupage River. Also fishing and picnic areas with restrooms and drinking water.

From 1933 to 1938, the U.S. government used a portion of McDowell Grove to operate a work camp for President Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps -— a work-relief program part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation — which built bridges, picnic areas, a boathouse, bridle paths and a limestone dam on the West Branch of the DuPage River. The stated goal of Camp McDowell was to create a "first-rate picnic area" out of the woods of a preserve. Housed in army-fashion barracks, the 3,800 workers who passed through the camp constructed many bridges and picnic shelters in various area preserves, as well as a boathouse, bridle paths and a limestone dam on the West Branch. Corps workers also spent a year dredging McDowell's lagoon.

The U.S. Defense Department acquired the land adjacent to the original McDowell Grove shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Army needed a secret installation site to test and develop its new radar technology. Camp McDowell was chosen as the site to train men in this new military science. During World War II, the camp housed half of the world's radar equipment under strict security.

Camp McDowell's period in DuPage County came to an end when the land was purchased by the District in 1946 as open space, when the federal government felt the facility was no longer needed for military purposes.

Today, the 515-acre McDowell Grove Forest Preserve in Naperville is comprised of mature woodlands, open fields with eastern bluebirds and Cooper’s hawks, and a floodplain forest with towering butternuts and black maples. It’s recently been the site of a dam- modification project, which will return the stretch of river to a healthier, more natural waterway and improve aquatic habitats.
Part of the DuPage Forest Preserve District.

www.dupageforest.com/Conservation/ForestPreserves/McDow...