Black Hawk State Historic Site

One of the area’s hidden gems! For hiking, birding, history or just a quiet picnic grove on the Rock River, it can’t be beat!
I personally know Richard Rush whose Chicago area internationally renowned company created the Native American displays in the museum housed in the World War I CCC constructed Lodge. It’s well worth the trip for kids of all ages, even over 50!
For years, the Fox/​Saux tribes held powwows here, even up until the late sixties! Here’s hoping they return to the practice!

I spent three days in Moline for a business function at the iWireless center. I needed a break so I found this park on Unilocal.Moline is rather compact so this is a about 15 minutes from the downtown area. The park is named for Black Hawk, the leader of the Sauk people who built a rather sophisticated culture in the Mississippi basin area. The draws are the native peoples museum and the surrounding park with hiking trails.
I visited the museum and walked down to the banks of the Rock RIver. The musuem has about five or six dioramas which give you a pretty good idea of everyday life for the Sauk people of the area.
As I walked the path straddling the river I couldn’t help thinking that this path was in everyday use hundreds of years ago.
From my visit I learned:
* the native peoples in the area had a rich culture
* it wasn’t exactly a picnic living in the path of Europeans as they moved westward (google Black Hawk War)
* my knees aren’t what they were as I made it down the steep path to the river.
Here is the lowdown from the website:
Pause a moment and picture a forest in the middle of the city — an urban paradise…
Hiking trails that wind deep into the woods, up rugged hills and along the banks of a gentle river, remote spots where nature wraps around you… the songs of birds… scampering squirrels… oaks that were here when the first pioneers came… Picnic shelters with stone fireplaces, a museum of Native American life, a nature center where children can learn the values of the natural world, playgrounds, a rustic lodge that a duke would envy…

A good friend of mine was married here recently, and I was reminded of how incredibly fortunate the Quad Cities is to have a place like this.
It’s a fine piece of culture in a beautiful natural setting. You can thank FDR for much of it; the Civilian Conservation Corps employed hundreds of World War I vets to build most of what we know the park as today. The trails (where we searched for arrowheads as kids), the Indian museum (where we took field trips in grade school), and the lodge (where we held our high school graduation party) all date back to the CCC project of the early 30s, and they’re still looking good.
If anyone ever doubted the natural beauty and rich history of this area, you owe them a visit here.