| Beauty & solitude, away from the hustle & bustle of city traffic, await visitors at Rock Island Trail State Park. Stretching for 26 miles from Alta, in Peoria County, to Toulon, in Stark County, the park offers many natural & architectural attractions in a tree-canopied corridor that is only 50 to 100 feet wide.
Prairie grass & wildflowers co-exist as remnants of early rail travel along the trail. Just north of Alta, an arched culvert provides a lovely backdrop for the natural beauty of the area. At the Peoria & Stark County line, a tall grass prairie remnant provides a step back into time & allows visitors to see the Illinois that the early settlers experienced. Just a few miles from the Toulon access area, a trestle bridge spans the Spoon River between Wyoming & Toulon. A few miles further south, the Wyoming Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Depot stands as a mute testimony to the hundreds of passengers that traveled along the railway just 100 years ago.
History
The Peoria & Rock Island Railroad Company was granted a charter to construct a railroad between Peoria & Rock Island on March 7, 1867. Construction began two years later, & the first regularly scheduled passenger train passed over the Rock Island Line July 8, 1871.
For more than 40 years, passenger & freight trains rumbled through the small towns of Alta, Dunlap, Princeville, Stark, Wyoming & Toulon. By 1915, however, rail traffic through these communities began to decline, & ceased completely by the late 1950's.
Peoria's Forest Park Foundation acquired the abandoned railway corridor in June, 1965, & deeded the property to the Department of Conservation four years later. Officially dedicated in 1989, the Rock Island Trail is the first railway conversion completed by the department. |
Campground: Rock Island State Trail in Wyoming Illinois *