Heritage Park

The Heritage Park Plan is a vision that weaves together an eight-mile corridor of green infrastructure features along the Des Plaines River and Illinois and Michigan Canal from Isle a la Cache (135th Street) through Lockport and into downtown Joliet. This plan advances the Green Legacy goal of connecting us to our rivers and streams. Another part of the plan meets the Green Legacy goal of preserving regionally significant open space through this year’s opening of Lincoln Landing. The Federal Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission-recognized project was created in 2009 on a key location along the Illinois & Michigan Canal in historic downtown Lockport.

Downtown master plans for Lockport and Joliet are other important assets that are being integrated into the multi-faceted Heritage Park Plan. This integration will preserve, restore and interpret the area’s rich cultural and natural history. This history extends from the early canal era through the period of industrial and transportation expansion and fueled the explosive regional development that the Burnham Plan later sought to transform through order, civility and healthful living.

Other initiatives related to the Heritage Park Plan contribute to the Green Legacy goal of linking four existing regional and one sub-regional trail systems and expanding greenspace opportunities in downtown Lockport and Joliet. These include development of the Lockport Loop Trail, the acquisition of inholdings within Dellwood Park West and the protection and interpretation of additional historic sites and structures.

For a print-friendly fact sheet on the Heritage Park, click here.