As you enter Joliet from the east along the Lincoln Highway, Pilcher Park welcomes visitors with its diverse natural areas, including high-quality forests and seep communities recognized on the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory. Once the private “Forest of Arden” arboretum created by Harlow Higinbotham—son of early settler pioneers and later a prominent Chicago businessman—the land was purchased in the 1920s by Robert Pilcher and donated to the City of Joliet. The park quickly became a recreational haven offering fishing, boating, hiking, and even a free tourist campground that drew over 9,000 travelers by 1923. Today, its scenic centerpiece remains Hickory Creek, with the historic 1920s concrete gravity dam standing at the park’s western edge.

 

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