MacQueen Forest Preserve Hiking Trails

This 48-acre former Boy Scout camp includes the lodge, three enclosed shelters, hiking trails and tent campsites. It is one of the most botanically rich and topographically varied forested preserves in our district. Showy Orchis, Glade Mallow, Cancer Root, ferns, and a nice array of other uncommon plants occur in the diverse upland and floodplain forests. A 100 foot bluff, too steep to walk, drops to the South Branch Kishwaukee River – a run where the river flows across limestone bedrock and the drops over THE GREAT KISHWAUKEE FALLS: an eroded fracture straight across the river’s bed that allows the water to crash straight over the precipice before falling six inches to the bedrock below (OK, maybe not spectacular, this is the Midwest, after all.) The state endangered Black Sandshell mussel has been found in this portion of the river and Bald Eagles nest nearby and the uncommon Pileated Woodpecker lives here. In the northeast corner of Macqueen a footbridge over Kingsbury Creek connects Macqueen to Potawatomi Woods Forest Preserve.