Pere Marquette State Park

A nature-lover's paradise, this 8,000-acre park in Jersey County is famous for the exceptional beauty of its fall colors and for its wintering bald eagle. In addition to enjoying the spectacular view of the Illinois River and its backwaters from several points atop the bluffs, visitors can take advantage of a variety of year-round recreational opportunities, including horseback riding, camping, hiking, fishing, hunting and boating. Pere Marquette's Visitor Center, opened in October 1997, welcomes you with a three-dimensional map of the park and wealth of other displays and exhibits concerning the Illinois River, wildlife habitat, local history and geology. The history of Pere Marquette State Park centers around that of the Illinois River. The forces that formed the river can be traced to ancient glaciers that pushed their way down over most of Illinois, but stopped just short of the park land. In the path of the glaciers and their meltwaters, a rich network of streams and rivers were formed, and tons of soil and bedrock were ground to dust which rose and blew up against the hillsides. These ancient layers of wind-blown soil, called loess (pronounced "less") can be seen along the roads and trails of Pere Marquette.