Elgin, Illinois

Elgin (pronounced (IPA)) is a city 40 mi. (64.5 km) northwest of Chicago, Illinois on the Fox River. Most of Elgin lies within Kane County, Illinois, with a portion in Cook County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 94,487, making it the eighth largest city in Illinois. Elgin is a diverse and rapidly growing community that was profiled in a 1997 issue of Money Magazine as a microcosm of the United States.

Arts, Recreation, and Conservation

Elgin is home to the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, "Illinois' second orchestra," according to Chicago Tribune music critic John Von Rhein. Other classical music groups include the Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Elgin Choral Union, and the Elgin Children's Chorus. Outdoor music venues include the Wing Park Bandshell and the Festival Park Bandshell, under construction as of May, 2005. Theatre groups include the Janus Theatre Company, Talisman Theatre, which is responsible for productions of Shakespeare in the Park, and Elgin Community Theatre.

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After losing many landmark businesses in the 1980's, downtown Elgin experienced a renaissance in the 1990s with the arrival of the Grand Victoria riverboat casino and improvement in the local economy. Many historic buildings have been transformed into stylish clubs and restaurants.

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Elgin has many city parks, including 112 acre (453,000 m²) Lords Park, which features a petting zoo and a herd of American bison, and 121 acre (490,000 m²) Wing Park, which includes a golf course. Other golf courses within Elgin include the Rolling Knolls Country Club, the Highlands of Elgin, and the Elgin Country Club. The Centre of Elgin, which among other features includes an aquatic park and a climbing wall, is one of the largest municipal recreation centers in the United States. The Elgin Sports Complex on the City's Southwest side has ten lighted ballfields, ten soccer fields and the Chicago area's premier BMX Track, The Hill. The Complex hosts several local, regional and national tournaments every year. Elgin is connected with Algonquin and Dundee to the north, and St. Charles, Geneva, and Batavia to the south by the Fox River Trail bike path.

Related Topics:
Acre - American bison - Algonquin - Dundee - St. Charles - Geneva - Batavia - Bike path

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Although it is one of the largest and fastest-growing cities in Illinois, Elgin still has some of the natural beauty and habitat diversity which first brought settlers to this area. The city is bordered on the East by the 4,200 acre (17 km²) Poplar Creek Preserve, maintained by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, which includes bike trails, hiking trails and equestrian trails. The Shoe Factory Road Prairie located in the preserve provides an example of the hill prairies which once dotted the region. Poplar Creek Preserves is connected to the 4,000 acre (16 km²) Spring Creek Valley Forest Preserve via a conservation easement covering parts of the Sears campus.

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Elgin boasts two highly protected Illinois Nature Preserves, the Bluff Spring Fen and Trout Park. For its size, Bluff Spring Fen has a remarkable number of distinct plant communities, including a hill prairie and a fen, or calcerous seep marshland, which is home to several rare orchids. The tiny black soil oak savanna restoration near the preserve entrance is one of few places where his extremely rare community can still be seen in Illinois. Trout Park also includes a similar calcerous seep community, with the addition of a unique forest community of oaks, ashes, maples, and unusual species like arbor vitae and witch hazel. The park was created in the 1920's by concerned Elginites who saw that much of the natural beauty of Elgin, still largely intact, was fast disappearing. The local newspaper ran a lengthy front-page story which consisted largely of lists of the plant species of Trout Park. This shows both the great variety of plants present and the intense interest Elginites had in conservation. The park was damaged when the Northwest Tollway bisected the site in the 1960s.

Related Topics:
Illinois Nature Preserves - Fen - Orchid - Oak savanna - Maple - Arbor vitae - Witch hazel - Northwest Tollway

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