Where have timbered areas crucial in state's settlement gone?
By Kirby Pringle
Sunday July 27, 2008
Darrell Hoemann
Urbana arborist Mike Brunk estimated the age of these burr oak trees in a small grove in the parking lot of the Champaign County fairgrounds in Urbana at 100 to 150 years old.
With a sweltering sun high overhead and the air thick and stifling, David and Jane Patton cup their hands over their eyes and look out over the vast prairie.
In the distance, perhaps 5 miles away – it is difficult to tell – is a timbered area. The couple and their children, along with two cows, four horses, chickens and turkeys, aim their wagons at the prairie grove. This timbered area around the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River in northeastern Champaign and southeastern Ford County, known as Sugar Grove, will be where they will build their log cabin.
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