280-300 million
years ago |
Coal Age swamps cover northern Illinois. |
| 10,000 BC |
Last glaciers retreat from northern Illinois. Mastodons, mammoths, and giant beavers become extinct. During the Glenwood Stage (Valparaiso Moraine) the Lake Chicago shoreline is 60 ft above present Lake Michigan level. |
| 8,000 BC |
In the Calumet Beach Stage, the Lake Chicago shoreline 40 ft above present level. Inland areas are occupied by Paleo-Indians. |
| 6,000 BC |
During the Tolleston Beach Stage, the shoreline of Lake Chicago is 20 ft above present level. |
| 2,500-500 BC |
Early Woodland people bring art of pottery making to the area. |
| 1,000 BC-1,200 AD |
Middle Woodland Indians have agricultural economy. They include Hopewell Indians, the mound builders. Late Woodland Indians build effigy mounds. |
| 1673 |
Father Marquette and Louis Jolliet explore the area and locate place for a canal to connect the Chicago and Des Plaines Rivers with the Illinois River. |
| 1763 |
Britain defeats France to gain control of the area. |
| 1816 |
Treaty with Ottawa, Potawatomi, and Chippewa tribes cedes land along the Illinois River to build a canal. |
| 1818 |
Illinois becomes the 21st state of the Union. It contains nearly 9 million acres of tall-grass prairie. |
| 1825 |
The Erie Canal opens, creating a new water route betwen Chicago and the East. The Illinois and Michigan Canal Company is incorporated. |
| 1832-33 |
After the Black Hawk War, the Treaty of Chicago was signed in 1833 leading to the expulsion of Indians from the area. |
| 1836 |
Work on the Illinois and Michigan Canal begins. |
| 1837 |
City of Chicago is incorporated. |
| 1840s |
Wet prairies and marshes are drained to promote agriculture. |
| 1848 |
I & M Canal opens linking the Atlantic Ocean with the Gulf of Mexico. |
| 1854 |
Chicago and Rock Island Railroad is opened to the Mississippi River, largely eliminating canal passenger traffic. |
| 1869 |
Iron and steel works opens in Joliet. |
| 1871 |
I & M Canal is deepened to reverse the flow of the Chicago River. |
| 1892 |
Construction of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal begins. |
| 1900 |
Sanitary and Ship Canal opens. |
| 1905 |
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is created. |
| 1920 |
Army planners develop the Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated (GOCO) concept to assure that the U.S. will not be caught short of fire-power as it was during World War I. |
| 1922 |
Cal Sag Channel opens. |
| 1928 |
Region 9 of the USFS, of which Midewin is a part, is established. |
| 1933 |
Illinois waterway opens and I & M Canal officially closes. |
| 1940 |
The U.S. Governement buys up 150 Joliet-area farms. |
| 1940-1945 |
The Joliet Arsenal is established as the world's largest TNT factory. It becomes a GOCO chemical works and bomb assembly plant. At its peak it produces, every week, the explosive equivalent of 290 atomic bombs, similar to the one dropped on Hiroshima. For safety and security, the Joliet factories are surrounded by more than 19,000 acres of fenced-off open buffer lands consisting of fields, pastures, prairie remnants, woods, and streams. |
| 1942 |
An explosion at the facility kills 40 munitions workers. |
| 1973 |
People, some from Openlands Project, begin to look at the site as a green oasis. |
| 1974 |
I & M Canal is transferred to the jurisdiction of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. |
| 1978 |
An Illinois Natural Areas Inventory reveals that only one-hundredth of one percent of high quality original prairie survives and that most of the scattered remnants are smaller than one acre. |
| 1982 |
Naturalists from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources recognize the potential of the site and begin to document it. |
| 1992 |
The Joliet Arsenal Citizen Planning Commission is convened. |
| 1993 |
Joliet Army Ammunition Plant is declared excess federal land. |
| 1996 |
19,165 acres of the former Joliet Arsenal are set aside to be managed as open space, clearing the way for creation of a tallgrass prairie ecosystem. |
| 1997 |
The U.S. Army formally transfers 15,080 acres to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Potawatomi word "midewin" is applied to the site and it becomes the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. Midewin means "healing society" and refers to the process of mending, soothing, and making whole again. |
| 1998-2006 |
Bioremediation of the site will be carried out. |
