Our Pick
Posted on @rawstates
Horseshoe Lake, a bend the Mississippi walked away from
1966
Granite City, Illinois
Trailnet · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The lake is an oxbow, a meander the Mississippi cut off and abandoned, and at roughly 2,400 acres it is the largest natural lake lying entirely inside Illinois. The state opened a park of about 2,960 acres around it in 1966, on the edge of Granite City and a short drive from the Cahokia mounds, whose builders lived on the same bottomland. Bike trails now run from the shore all the way across the river.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: approximate area
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