More gleanings from a geography trip to western Macoupin county. The 1932 USGS map shows a landing field in the SW corner of Bird township. A local told me it is gone now, but was a stop for Lindbergh when he was flying mail. Lindbergh slept in a house that is still there. Where is the mound that Western Mound township is named for? I can only guess it is a mound in the Macoupin Creek bottom somewhere. I suppose there were black bears in the county: Bear Rough road and school. I learned that Beaver Dam Lake is dammed on both ends. Evidently Hurricane Creek flowed through it at one time. When beavers dammed it, the resulting lake spilled over the divide between Hurricane Creek and Macoupin Creek, changing the course of Hurricane Creek.

The grass air strip landing field was on the Joseph Wheeler farm, section 31, Bird township. Selected because of the flat and treeless terrain. It was there in case Lindbergh needed a place to land in an emergency while flying the mail from St. Louis to Springfield. Macoupin County Enquirer newspaper in Carlinville in an August edition (I believe 1927) stated that the field had been selected on the Wheeler farm in Bird township. I had never heard that Lindbergh slept in the house on the farm, but maybe he did. I also have never heard if he ever had to make a stop there. My Uncle lived on a farm near by and he never mentioned that Lindbergh had actually landed there. I remember the Lindbergh plane flying over in the western sky every evening about a hour before dusk on his flight to Springfield. Very few planes were seen in the sky in those days and the comment said each evening as the plane passed by was, "There goes Lindbergh"! That was in the days when very few airplanes were seen in the sky and when you heard an airplane you usually ran outside or looked up just to see the plane fly over. I do remember one Sunday in the mid or late thirties a fly in was held at the Wheeler field and it was an exciting sight to this little lad to see the many little airplanes parked at the air strip. Beaver Dam: Following the melting of the Ice Age Glacier the melt water running off cut the Hurricane and the Macoupin creeks. At one time the Hurricane creek emptied into the Macoupin creek west of Beaver Dam Park. The Macoupin creek carrying much more water than the Hurricane creek on a wide bending flow gradually ate through the ridge that divided the two creeks north of Beaver Dam and then stole the water flowing down the Hurricane, it being a deeper creek. Thus the valley through Beaver dam became an abanded valley. In time at the point of land on the now lake that reaches out into the lake developed a spring. The water from the spring on the northeast side of the point flowed backward down the abanded Hurricane creek bed and flowed into the Macoupin at that point north of the Park. The water on the west side of the point flowed westward down the abanded creek bed into the Macoupin creek. About 300 years ago a colony of beavers built a dam across the west flowing small creek and developed a lake of four or five acres. The dam was about where the west dam is now. Later the beavers abanded the lake and moved on. When the first white settlers settled here, the remains of the old beaver dam was still there and during a wet spring weather a small shallow lake of a couple acres would developed but soon dry up in the summer weather. This lake is seen on early plats of Polk township listed as named, "Dry Beaver Lake". In 1881 a group of eighteen business men in Carlinville leased the lake grounds from the farm owner, built a dam on each end of what is now the lake at a cost of $2000 and developed a lake of about seventy acres. At that time they guessed the lake to be about 100 acres, but modern measurements show the lake was nearer to 70 acres. This property was then their private recreational property to be used by the membership for fishing and picnics. They also constructed a club house. After the farm owner died in 1900, the property was inherited by a daughter Mrs. Frank (Sarah) Rhodes. She and her husband cancelled the lease to the Carlinville business men and they built a small 16 room hotel and in 1906 opened the Beaver Dam Fishing Resort. People could come by train to Macoupin Station where they were met by a horse drawn carriage for transportation to the hotel and lake. Fishing was a dollar a day and lodging in the hotel was two dollars a day. Meals were also served in the Lodge. The popular fishing resort operated until about the mid-thirties when people were coming by auto to fish during the day and returning home the same day and Mr. Rhodes passed away about this same time and the hotel closed but continues the pay to fish part of the operation. In 1947, Mrs. Rhodes at an advanced age, sold the lake portion of the farm on the north-west side of the highway to the state of Illinois whom developed the property into the Beaver Dam Lake State Park and opened the Park to the public in 1948. Jim Frank ----- Original Message ----- From: "lloyd konneker" <bootch@nc.rr.com> To: <ILMACOUP@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 6:49 AM Subject: [ILMACOUP] more history and geography: Lindbergh, and Western Mound > More gleanings from a geography trip to western Macoupin county. > > The 1932 USGS map shows a landing field in the SW corner of Bird > township. A local told me it is gone now, but was a stop for Lindbergh > when he was flying mail. Lindbergh slept in a house that is still > there. > > Where is the mound that Western Mound township is named for? I can only > guess it is a mound in the Macoupin Creek bottom somewhere. > > I suppose there were black bears in the county: Bear Rough road and > school. > > I learned that Beaver Dam Lake is dammed on both ends. Evidently > Hurricane Creek flowed through it at one time. When beavers dammed it, > the resulting lake spilled over the divide between Hurricane Creek and > Macoupin Creek, changing the course of Hurricane Creek. > > > > > Check out Macoupin County ILGenWeb page at > http://www.macoupinctygenealogy.org/. > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ILMACOUP-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message

An answer to Lloyd Konneker who inquired if there were bears at one time in Macoupin county? Particularly Western Mound township! An article in the Macoupin County Enquirer, issue dated March 22, 1893 titled Macoupin's Early Days tell: This writer remembers distinctly hearing the old pioneers relate their dangerous encounters with the bear. Some three miles north-east of Chesterfield there is a point of timber running out south of Bear creek, some three miles into the prairie. In the early days this was named "Bear-Rough Point which name it retains to this day. It was so named on account of the great number of bears which inhabited the area. We remember having heard Joseph Hodges (who was a son of Seth Hodges) relate the facts and circumstances attending the slaughter of many of these animals by his father and others in "Bear Rough Point", and it is absolutely certain that this point as well as Bear creek took their names from the fact of there being found in their precincts such vast numbers of this animal. ----- Original Message ----- From: "lloyd konneker" <bootch@nc.rr.com> To: <ILMACOUP@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, October 02, 2009 6:49 AM Subject: [ILMACOUP] more history and geography: Lindbergh, and Western Mound > More gleanings from a geography trip to western Macoupin county. > > The 1932 USGS map shows a landing field in the SW corner of Bird > township. A local told me it is gone now, but was a stop for Lindbergh > when he was flying mail. Lindbergh slept in a house that is still > there. > > Where is the mound that Western Mound township is named for? I can only > guess it is a mound in the Macoupin Creek bottom somewhere. > > I suppose there were black bears in the county: Bear Rough road and > school. > > I learned that Beaver Dam Lake is dammed on both ends. Evidently > Hurricane Creek flowed through it at one time. When beavers dammed it, > the resulting lake spilled over the divide between Hurricane Creek and > Macoupin Creek, changing the course of Hurricane Creek. > > > > > Check out Macoupin County ILGenWeb page at > http://www.macoupinctygenealogy.org/. > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ILMACOUP-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message