04/27/2026
Nygren Wetlands 🦆🦫🪶🐢🦋
3190 W. Rockton Rd., Rockton, Illinois
Another natural location in our beautiful Rockton in support of Earth Day 🌎🌱🌳and Spring 🌸. It also is an area that draws attention during periods of flooding 🌧️ 🌊like we are experiencing now!
This beautiful land is located at the confluence of the Rock and Pecatonica rivers. People benefit from this preserve when the wetlands store water during raining seasons and reduce flooding downstream of the Rock River.
History:
Nygren Wetlands was inhabited by indigenous groups for thousands of years. These groups’ lives depended on the rich ecological diversity of the land. They built serpentine, conical, and turtle effigy mounds and artifacts and remnants have been found in the area.
Claimed by the French, then the English, and finally transferred to the United States as part of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the area became part of the Northwest Territory. Sauk, Fox, Potowatomi, and Winnebago inhabited the land at different periods of time, but their claims to the land ended after the Black Hawk skirmishes of 1832.
Colonel William Talcott, known as a founder of Rockton, filed a land claim for this area with the U.S. government in 1836. William Talcott’s son, Thomas, built a log cabin at the confluence of the Pecatonica and Rock rivers. After two years, he moved to higher ground in Rockton, having learned first hand of what we now refer to as annual, five, 20, and 100-year flood events. (We are experiencing some of that flooding now 🌧️ 😉!) Thomas Talcott later served as a state senator from the Rockton area.
In 1838 the Rockton mill race conceived by William Talcott was dug by hand. The Nygren Wetland land surely was used to produce lumber for the saw mill built along the mill race. As forests gave way to fields, a railroad was built across the lowlands of the Nygren property. The first train ran on the Racine and Mississippi Railroad line in 1856. The railway was officially abandoned, and track ties and structures were removed in the late 1970s.
For decades, the area was used as farm and grazing land. In the 1970s, it was altered with stream straightening to manage flooding, resulting in a reduction of natural vegetation.
In the years 1998-2000, following Carl Nygren’s passing, the National Land Institute began a campaign in 199 to purchase the property, finalizing the acquisition in 2000 with a desire to return it to a natural state. Years of work have converted the land into a habitat featuring prairies, bottomland forest, and a thriving wetland, which acts as a major attractor for wildlife. It is a popular location to watch birds such as sandhill cranes, great egrets, pelicans, bald eagles, blue herons, and many others.
Take the Dianne Nora Nature Trail to view the wetlands up close (when there isn’t flooding 😉) and/or just stop by briefly and take a look via the Jack R. Cook Pavilion, an overlook where you can take a breathtaking full view of the wetlands or look through a tower viewer (binoculars) to look up close at the animals and wildlife.
