Wolf Lake Wasteland Traditional Cache

This cache has been archived.

Woodbutcher68: The city is turning this area into a wetland and I have no control over how long they take. I am archiving this one and may someday put in a new cache.

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Hidden : 3/17/2006
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

Road in is not maintained and closed at the parking area due to people dumping in the area.

Park at N 41.39.714 W 87.31.518
Enter from the Illinois side on Stateline Road.
As you walk West under the Toll Road, you can see part of the reason for the name of this cache. The real reason is under your feet. Wolf Lake today is less than half of what it used to be. The South end of it was filled in years ago with slag from the nearby steel mills. If you walk to the water’s edge from the cache site, you can see the slag exposed. There are also slag dumps on the North end of the lake. It was a shallow lake according to an 1895 Corps of Engineers survey and was once connected to Lake Michigan by the Wolf River, now known as the Amaizo Channel or Corn Channel on the North and Indian Creek to the West. There were also a few other lakes in the area that were filled with slag. George Lake to the East is the only other survivor and it’s even smaller than it was 30 years ago. Most of the water in Wolf Lake now comes from Lake Michigan via UniLever and Cargill, who draw water in, use it in their plant and discharge it into Wolf Lake. There is also at least one spring east of the Toll Road. The water then flows across the state line at the South End of Stateline Road, through the pools at the Powers Conservation area into Indian Creek which empties into the Little Calumet River and returns to Lake Michigan.
It has been reported the family of Abraham Lincoln had vacationed at Wolf Lake, so you could say “Abe Lincoln slept here”.
This side of the lake was home to a Nike missile site during the Cold War. You can still see the concrete radar tower bases in the Powers Conservation area and the missile silos were north of there on the North shore of the lake. There is a railroad track running through the lake on the Illinois side. It was along this track that a railroad conductor spotted the body of Bobby Franks in 1924. Bobby was the victim in the “Crime of the Century”, the Leopold-Loeb murder case in which Clarence Darrow was the attorney for the defense. (visit link)
It was also in this area that the last bear was shot and killed while chasing a young boy.
While the area has become a dumping ground, it still has a natural beauty to it. Our current mayor envisioned a sports arena and restaurants on this site, but those plans seem to have been forgotten.
There are Mute Swan, ducks and geese on the lake, deer and coyotes in the area and an assortment of fish including salmon from Lake Michigan. Bald Eagles and hawks have also been seen here. The Indiana State record Tiger Muskie was caught on the east section and reportedly there are Walleye big enough to topple the Indiana state record. Walleye are stocked by a local fishing group on the East section, but that’s information for my next cache.
The cache is a camouflaged coffee can containing a logbook and pencil, a tire gauge, Play Dough, a candle, a cup holder and a bag of handmade wood items for the FTF.

Additional Hints (No hints available.)



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