Before the Illinois Department of Natural Resources: Conservation History Prior to 1925

“Prairies spread out before them beyond the reach of vision, covered with tall grass, which undulated in the wind like waves of a sea…the surface was studded with clumps of timber, resembling islands…flowers, surpassing in their delicacy of their tints the pampered products of cultivation, were profusely sprinkled over the grassy landscape and gave their wealth of fragrance to the passing breeze. Immense herds of buffalo and deer grazed on these rich pastures…the rivers swarmed with fish…so numerous were the waterfowl and other birds, that the heavens were frequently obscured by their flight.” This is how Davidson and Stuve (1884) described the 1673 explorations of Frenchmen Louis Joliet and Father Marquette as they traveled through the land that would one day become known as Illinois.

Before It Was Illinois

By 1763, the French had ceded this land of plenty to Great Britain. During the next twenty years, English settlement of the area was limited, mainly to river corridors, by a proclamation from the king of England which in effect reserved much of the land as hunting grounds for the indigenous tribes who lived there. In 1783, after the Revolutionary War, Great Britain recognized the Illinois territory as part of the newly established United States of America. Settlement of the area by non-indigenous people was slow until Congress passed a law in 1813 that gave preference to American and European settlers in land sales. The settler population thus grew, and in 1818 Illinois became the twenty-first state.

From Exploitation to Protection of State Natural Resources (1830s to early 1900s)

The 1800s heralded an era of unprecedented economic growth in Illinois. The plows began breaking the prairie in earnest in the 1830s. In the 1850s, the railroads hastened the destruction of Illinois’ forests with their demand for railroad ties and bridge timbers. By 1860, the state had 11 rail lines and 2,867 miles of track, and with the trains came more people. Towns rapidly began to establish and the expansive forests and prairies that once covered the majority of the state were quickly being converted into lumber and put into agricultural production.

By the 1850s, the Illinois settler population had grown large enough that surveys of the state’s natural resources were deemed necessary. Trains needed coal to power them, and they provided a faster means of transporting goods, opening up further opportunities for extracting coal and oil. In 1851, the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill to create a survey of the geological formations and mineral resources of the state and appointed G. J. Norwood as the first Illinois State Geologist.

The growing population and unrestricted use of natural resources came with consequences besides economic growth. With the immense loss of woodland and grassland habitat, and nearly unenforced conservation laws, many fish and wildlife populations were on the brink. Something had to be done. While no Game Commission yet existed in Illinois, the first game law was passed in 1853, making it illegal in 16 counties to kill deer, prairie-chicken, quail, woodcock or wood partridge between January 1 and July 20 each year.

Soon after, in 1858, the Natural History Society of Illinois was organized at Illinois State Normal University. The Society was officially chartered in 1861 by an act of the General Assembly to conduct a “scientific survey of the State of Illinois in all the departments of natural history” and maintained a library and a museum with nearly 60,000 specimens representing the diversity of Illinois flora and fauna. The Natural History Society became the State Laboratory of Natural History in 1877, with Stephen A. Forbes as its director, and then moved to Champaign in 1885. Less than 10 years later, in 1894, a field station was established near Havana. The Stephen A. Forbes Biological Station is the oldest inland field station in North America, and the research conducted there has informed natural resource management of aquatic habitats, waterfowl hunting and more.

The Illinois Fish Commission was established in 1879 and was operational until 1913. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s drainage districts were being created, and they were hard at work draining the watery prairie state to accommodate more agricultural production. The main work of the Fish Commission was to redistribute fish from areas that were being drained to locations where they would be able to survive.

Fish were not the only ones struggling. Gone were the mountain lions, black bears, and gray wolves that once roamed Illinois. Populations of white-tailed deer, beavers, river otters, bison, passenger pigeons, prairie-chickens and others had dropped to precipitously low levels by this time. The first game wardens were hired in 1885 to enforce the state’s natural resources laws. The three men were stationed in Chicago, Peoria and Quincy, respectively, and 22 more wardens were hired in 1899.

In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “the states, not private landowners, owned wildlife, giving states the right to protect wildlife living on both public and private land.” This provided Illinois with the opportunity to move towards greater protection of wildlife and other natural resources.

In 1897, the state provided funding to the University of Illinois to conduct a “chemical and biological survey of the waters of the State” which effectively established the State Water Survey.

The Office of the State Game Commission was created in 1903. That year, hunting license requirements were established for Illinois residents and non-residents. It also became illegal to sell waterfowl that had been hunted in Illinois.

In 1905, the General Assembly passed an act which created the State Geological Survey housed within the University of Illinois. H. Foster Bain was named the first director and served as the Illinois State Geologist.

Fisheries laws were not introduced until many years after the first game laws, and so the first fish wardens were not hired until 1911. Two years later, the Fish and Game Commission was formed. In 1913-14 Illinois’ first fish hatcheries were established in Spring Grove and Havana. The Illinois Game and Fish Commission put the railroads to work in 1915 when it purchased a “state fish car” which was used to move fish from the hatcheries around the state for stocking. That year the Illinois Waterway Commission was also created.

1917: A Big Year for Conservation and Worker Safety

In 1917, Illinois abolished the Game and Fish Commission and merged the game and fish wardens into the newly established Division of Fish and Game in the Department of Agriculture. That year the Department of Registration and Education was also created and “within this department, a Board of Natural Resources and Conservation was created to administer the Scientific Surveys.” The State Laboratory of Natural History merged with the State Entomologist’s office and became the Illinois Natural History Survey. Forbes was named its first chief.

The Illinois Civil Administrative Code established the duties of the three existing surveys (Natural History, Geological and Water Surveys). Collectively they were to: “1. investigate and study the state’s natural resources, 2. strategically plan for the conservation and development of the state’s natural resources; and 3. cooperate with and advise other state administrative departments and other state and federal departments responsible for the state’s natural resources.”

In 1917, the Civil Administrative Code also combined the Canal Commissioners, the Rivers and Lakes Commission and the Illinois Waterway Commission into the Division of Waterways in the Department of Public Works and Buildings and tasked the new Division with duties pertaining to Illinois rivers, lakes and canals. Decades later this Division would become the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ Office of Water Resources.

The first state park in Illinois, Fort Massac State Park, was dedicated in May 1908. The State Park System, managing over 400 acres by 1917, was also combined into the Department of Public Works and Buildings.

The Legislature also established the Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals in 1917 “to ensure the health and safety of Illinois’ miners.” In 1909, the Cherry Mine Disaster had killed 259 miners and became the “worst mining disaster in Illinois and the third worst in the United States.” Following that disaster three mine rescue stations were established in LaSalle, Springfield and Benton. According to the IDNR, “the purposes of the rescue stations were to furnish a trained corps of men to assist in the rescue efforts at mine sites in the event of an accident or disaster and to train men in the use of rescue appliances so that ultimately every mine in the state would have a team of men who could enter. Illinois was the first state in the nation to provide statewide rescue teams and facilities.”

The Early 1920s

The Division of Forestry was established in 1919 and their first attempts to reforest surface-mined lands began in 1920.

In 1923, hook and line fishermen were required for the first time to have a fishing license to legally harvest fish.

In 1925, the State Forest and forest nurseries were established, and the state created the Illinois Department of Conservation.

Looking to the Future

Seventy years later, in July of 1995, the Department of Conservation would become the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Read this 100-year anniversary account of how these first commissions and departments eventually became the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Resources

These sources were invaluable in preparing this article and will be of interest to the history buffs:

Davidson, Alexander and Bernard Stuve. 1884. A Complete History of Illinois from 1673 to 1884. Published by H.W. Rokker.

The History of Conservation in Illinois. 1941.
IDNR history timeline: https://dnr.illinois.gov/education/atoz/conservationhistory.html

Outdoor Illinois (History 1900 to 1999): https://www.lib.niu.edu/1999/oi991202.html

History of the Scientific Surveys: https://prairie.illinois.edu/about/history/
Early railroad history in Illinois

Report of State Fish Commissioners (1898-1900): https://archive.org/details/report18981900illi/page/n33/mode/2up

Cherry Mine Disaster: https://guides.library.illinois.edu/c.php?g=416856&p=2840930