Beall Woods State Park

Infobox_protected_area | name = Beall Woods State Park, Illinois, USA
iucn_category = III


caption = Map of the U.S. state of Illinois showing the location of Beall Woods State Park
locator_x = 230
locator_y = 295
location = Wabash County, Illinois, USA
nearest_city = Keensburg, Illinois
lat_degrees = 38
lat_minutes = 21
lat_seconds = 31
lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 87
long_minutes = 49
long_seconds = 30
long_direction = W
area = 635 acres (2.57 km²)
established = 1966
visitation_num =
visitation_year =
governing_body = Illinois Department of Natural Resources

Beall Woods State Park is Illinois state park on 635 acres (2.57 km²) bordering the Wabash River and Keensburg in Wabash County, Illinois in the United States. 329 acres (1.33 km²) of the state park is an old-growth forest designated as an "Natural Area" by the state of Illinois. The trees within the forest consist overwhelmingly of hardwoods of the former Eastern Woodlands ecosystem. Beall Woods State Park has been elevated to the status of a National Natural Landmark as the "Forest of the Wabash". The state park was created in 1966. The nearest towns with any sizable commercial infrastructure, including hotels and grocery stores, are Grayville and Mount Carmel. The park does host a small primitive campground and maintains a visitor center which opened in April 2001. The park maintains 6.25 miles (10.06 km) of hiking trails, primarily through the Forest of the Wabash portion of the park.

Forest of the Wabash

The Forest of the Wabash Natural Area within Beall Woods State Park contains trees from 64 separate species. Foresters have counted more than 300 "climax" trees with trunks of greater than 30 inches (76 cm) diameter at "breast" i.e. 40 inches (1 m) high. Some of the trees in the Forest of the Wabash are more than 120 feet (37 m) tall.

Trees of note include the white oak (the state tree of Illinois), the tuliptree (the state tree of Indiana, across the Wabash River), the American sycamore, and the American Sweetgum. One of the sweetgums of this Forest is designated as the "state champion" tree as being the largest member of this species known to grow within the boundaries of Illinois.

The Forest of the Wabash was patented by the federal government to the Beall family in the early 1800s, and was owned by them as an undisturbed woodlot until the 1960s. Meanwhile almost all of the other old-growth trees in the Wabash Valley were cut down for fine hardwood purposes, timber, or even for firewood. Upon the death of Laura Beall, the last private-sector guardian of the Forest of the Wabash, and after a fight with a lumber company, in 1965 the State of Illinois condemned the Beall farm and forest for public use.

References

*cite web |url= http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/Landmgt/PARKS/R5/BEALL.HTM|title= Beall Woods - State Park|accessdate=2007-03-28 |publisher = Illinois Department of Natural Resources
*cite news | author= USGS | url= http://www.topoquest.com/map.asp?lat=38.35861&lon=-87.825&datum=nad27&u=6&layer=DRG&size=l&s=24 | title= United States Geological Survey Topographic Map, Keensburg (IL,IN) Quad
publisher= TopoQuest | accessdate= 2008-06-29