Moraine View State Recreation Area
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The Moraine View State Recreation Area is a state park operated by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) of the U.S. state of Illinois. The 1,687-acre (6.7 km²) recreation area is located near Le Roy, Illinois.
The ancestor of Moraine View, the McLean County Conservation Area, traces its history to 1959. The park was renamed Moraine View State Park in 1975, then Moraine View State Recreation Area in 1995. It is managed for active recreation, including hunting and fishing. Hunters use the park for whitetail deer, pheasant, and wild turkey.
[edit] Dawson Lake
The centerpiece of Moraine View is the 158-acre (0.6 km²) Dawson Lake, an artificial reservoir built in 1962-1963. Fish stocked in the lake by the DNR include largemouth bass, bluegill (the state fish of Illinois), sunfish, bullhead, crappie, channel catfish, walleye, yellow perch and northern pike.
[edit] Geology
Moraine View State Recreation Area is located atop a moraine, a low, rolling ridge located where a vanished ice sheet dumped ground rock and till while melting. Moraines are common post-glacial geological features, and can be found throughout the U.S. Midwest. This moraine was produced by the Wisconsin glaciation, about 70,000 to 10,000 years before present.
Moraine View SRA is the headwaters for Salt Creek, a major tributary of the Sangamon River, one of the largest rivers in central Illinois. The northeastern face of the same moraine, outside the state recreation area, is the headwaters of the main stem of the Sangamon. Although Salt Creek and the main stem of the Sangamon arise on opposite sides of this moraine, they flow more than 80 miles west before they meet again.
