Agencies
Services
Land and Water Reserve Area
1
County
Jo Daviess
Location
The site is in the southwestern portion of Jo Daviess County, about one mile south of the Town of Hanover. It is bordered on the east by IL Routh 84 and on the west by the Apple River.
Description
Wapello Land and Water Reserve was established to provide permanent protection for natural communities, wildlife, and archaeological resources. The reserve hosted a settlement of a mixing of peoples of the Terminal Late Woodland and Mississippian cultures which inhabited the site approximately 1050 to 1350 A.D. The site contains only known platform mound remaining within the Apple River Valley. The protection of the archaeological resources provides professional research opportunities to increase the knowledge of the people that inhabited this area. Wapello Land and Water Reserve also protects natural communities’ representative of the Wisconsin Driftless Natural Division including shortgrass prairie restoration, wet-mesic upland forest, mesic uplands forest, and low-gradient stream. It also provides habitat for the endangered and threatened species which are found within or use the reserve.
Ownership
Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation
Natural Division
Wisconsin Driftless Natural Division (#1)
Registered
February 2006
Size
334 acres
Access
The site is open to the public. It contains a trail system, interpretive signs, informational kiosk, and parking lot. The trail system goes through the prairie and along the forest with overlooks on the Apple River.
Topographic Quad
Green Island
For Further Information
Visit the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation Website or Contact the INPC
Illinois Nature Preserves Commission
One Natural Resources Way
Springfield, IL 62702
217-785-8686
DNR.INPC@illinois.gov