Shady Rest
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help improve this article or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since May 2006. (help, talk) |
Shady Rest is a twenty-eight acre natural area on the Sangamon River near White Heath, Illinois, which has been the apple of the Heatland Pathway's eye for years. The Sangamon Valley board engineered a $120,000 grant from the Clean Energy Foundation that will enable the Piatt County Forest Preserve to buy the site and preserve Shady Rest in perpetuity.
Shady Rest is an outstanding site on the Sangamon River. It features include the river, a moraine, a bottomland forest with beautiful under-story herbs and wildlife, a rail-trail that moves through the site and cultural history. Shady Rest is only twenty minutes from Champaign on Shady Rest Road off Route 10 and is within easy access of many nearby communities.
Contents |
[edit] Bottomland and upland forest
Shady Rest has been, until recently, a historic recreational park on the banks of the Sangamon River west of White Heath.
Area citizens met and mingled there in an era when there were few cars to take them further afield.
The 28-acre park is part bottomland and part upland forest with an interesting mix of under-story herbs.
[edit] Access
In the twenties visitors took the interurban railroad to White Heath then walked down the Illinois Central mainline to the riverside park.
Today's visitors take Rt. 10 west 15 miles to Shady Rest Rd. then one mile south to the park entrance just past a concrete bridge over the Sangamon. The site is close to many communities.
[edit] History
The Price family, who owned and operated Shady Rest for many years, also owned the Champaign based oldest Dupont Paint store in the country at that time, They used the site as a family and client retreat. In 1934 they built a garage and subsequently a cabin on a ridge.
In 1985 Mrs. Price, who was by then the sole owner after her husband David passed, wanted to ensure that the site would be retained as a natural resource and retreat along with the related Heartland Pathways rail bed that runs through the site. Mrs. Price contributed significantly to the purchase of the rail bed. In this context the Price family and Heartland Pathways, as partners, played a significant role in the early preservation of the Shady Rest and Heartland Pathways complex.
In 1995, after Mrs Prices death, the formal purchase of Shady Rest was arranged for preservation purposes. A not-for-profit agency, the Sangamon Valley Conservancy, was funded for that purpose by a number of generous contributors. The SVC has owned the site for ten years.
[edit] Natural history
The intent of those concerned about the future of Shady Rest is to allow the site to return to nature and to dedicate it as a natural area.
[edit] Cultural History
It is assumed that a natural history designation will not prevent preservation of the recreational history of the site.
[edit] Re-growth
The recreational nature of the woods remains identifiable by the presence of big and small but no in-between trees. This indicates that the site was at one stage cleared of small trees and brush to create a park-like setting.
As the site returned to nature the under-story plants have burgeoned and they make a beautiful display in spring. A number of under-story herbs continue throughout the summer and fall.
Winter at Shady Rest is quiet, open and wonderful.
Settlers sought to suppress fires, so there is an excess of maples that in nature would have been culled by fire to which maples are susceptible
[edit] Vernacular housing
Two recreation era houses remain on an upland ridge that is part of the Cerro Gordo moraine. One house is occupied. The other, the Price family retreat, is an example of the inexpensive and vernacular cabin-like buildings of the period.
[edit] Settlement patterns
The occupants and users of Shady Rest largely migrated to the area from Kentucky and Tennessee and that ethnicity remains in the surrounding community.
[edit] Geology
The Cerro Gordo Moraine, which runs through Shady Rest, was the southern border of a lake that covered the lowlands extending north to Centreville. Eventually the lake broke through at Shady Rest. This breakthrough formed the Sangamon River, which runs through the site.
[edit] Rail Trail
An abandoned Illinois Central rail-bed trail, owned by Heartland Pathways, runs through the site with a bridge and trestle over the Sangamon River that is an attraction. Shady Rest provides a convenient rest stop on the HP hiking and biking trail.
[edit] Railroad history
The rail-bed introduces an element of railroad history. Steam trains took on water from the river at this location.
[edit] Railway Museum
The Monticello Railway Museum (MRRM) abuts the Heartland Pathways trail at White Heath, just a mile away. It is possible that the museum could extend to Shady Rest, giving museum visitors the opportunity to visit a bottomland forest and historic recreational site.
[edit] Potential tourist circuit
Some historic railroad interests would like to extend the MRRMs tracks to Lodge to join a Norfolk Southern mainline to complete a 23 mile tourist circuit south to Monticello and back to the Railway Museum.
[edit] Rail trail to Clinton
Heartland Pathway hopes to extend its rail trail west to Clinton, east to Champaign, and southwest to Monticello and Decatur. Shady Rest is an attractive feature of that complex. Much of the plans for the extension of trails involves finance that HP does not have at this time so these potential trails remain undeveloped.
[edit] Removal of ties
Heartland Pathways has been privileged to store railroad ties at Shady Rest which are used in its bridge and trail development work. These ties have been removed to nearby trail sites leaving Shady Rest unencumbered by HP era artifacts.
[edit] Activities
[edit] Recreational use
In its heyday, Shady Rest sported a number of small cabins, a club house, three residences and the space for tenting and recreational activities.
[edit] Retreat
In recent years Shady Rest has been used as a retreat.
The cabins have been torn down and the forest has grown back.
[edit] Flood plain trails
The flood plains to the north that are spring-wet and are summer-dry could be used as dry-season trails.
[edit] Canoeing
When the river is high there is the potential for canoeing on the Sangamon River from Mahomet to Decatur.
[edit] Art and aesthetics
The site is ideal site for artists and people wanting to enjoy the aesthetics of an outdoor setting.
[edit] In the Community
[edit] Long-term care
Shady Rest is currently being transferred by the Sangamon Valley Conservancy to the Piatt County Forest Preserve, with the aid of a Clean Energy Community Foundation Grant. The grant will pay the Forest Preserve to reimburse SVC for the loans that HP and SVC solicited in order for SVC to buy the site. The Piatt County Forest Preserve will then become the owners in perpetuity and caretakers of the site. The grant will pay approximately $4,000 per acre to release the people who have made tangible loans to SVC for the preservation.
The grant does not cover preservation costs incurred by Heartland Pathways or others in the twenty years prior to the SVC purchase. This is disappointing to Heartland Pathways which depends on real or quid pro quo reimbursement of its activities so that it can engage in future acquisitions.
The transfer of Shady Rest to the Forest Preserve will ensure a tax base for the natural and cultural restoration, maintenance and interpretation of the park.
[edit] Community interest
Heartland Pathways, which did much of he initial preservation work, will continue to own its bed, trail and bridge and it will continue to take a non controlling interest in the park and its related resources.
[edit] Regional Resource
Shady Rest is an important geological, biological, cultural and aesthetic resource that needs protection.
[edit] Real estate value
In real estate terms, Shady Rest has site-specific added value for the likes of Park Districts and Forest Preserves, because of the sites special attributes that are often of interest to park districts.
An appraisal value based on comparable sales placed the value of the site at $7,000 an acre. Added attributes make the site more valuable, but only if the buying park district is prepared to pay for the value added attributes. This rarely happens because park districts are mostly interested in acquiring land at or near the comparable value.
Since the above appraisal was made, a nearly adjacent tract of 8 acres has sold for $25,000 per acre for retreat housing, which is a fair indication of the value of Shady Rest.
[edit] A huge donation
When the above added values are considered the Sangamon Valley Conservancy, the Clean Energy Foundation, and Heartland Pathways are making a huge donation to the Forest Preserve. The quid pro quo is that the Forest Preserve will provide perpetual care, public access and a tax base.
[edit] Future land acquisitions
It is obvious that the region cannot acquire more sites like this without a heavy cost.
[edit] Development
There is the possibility that adjacent land might be acquired for a visitor center and adjunct space. The cost may be high but such acquisitions may be timely even if expensive.
