So This Guy Walks This River
Chicago’s city flag is fairly recognizable: four distinctive red stars against a white background with a blue stripe running across the top and another across the bottom. Those two blue stripes, we are told, represent the north and south branches of the Chicago River.
I’d like to propose a modest change: rather than recognize the two branches separately, how about one blue stripe represents the Chicago River, while the other represents the Des Plaines River?
I’m sure this sounds like heresy to many, but in my opinion, the Des Plaines River has had a much more consequential impact on the city than its namesake river. And not just the city, but the entire Chicago metro area. At the risk of hyperbole, Chicago wouldn’t be the city we know if it weren’t for the Des Plaines River.
It gets no respect
There isn’t a single source where you can learn everything about the Des Plaines River, but that can be said about… well, everything.
On Wikipedia, for instance, you can learn the barest of facts in a few minutes: it starts near Kenosha, Wisconsin and flows south through southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois; it eventually meets the Kankakee River southwest of Chicago where together they form the Illinois River; French explorers and missionaries of the 1600’s dubbed it La Rivière des Plaines (River of the Plane Tree) as they felt that trees on the river resembled the European Plane tree back home.
There’s a little bit more than that on Wikipedia, but not as much as you might think, and not all of it is good information. For instance, it describes “numerous small, fixed dams” being on the river, but there haven’t been any low-head dams on the Des Plaines River since 2021. It mentions the six-lane cantilevered Des Plaines River Bridge on I-80 in Joliet but ignores all the other 100+ Des Plaines River bridges. And in the mother of all oversights, it somehow fails to mention that there were two WWII Nazi POW camps on its banks, in Des Plaines and Channahon.
I could go on. In fact, that’s exactly what I do at this website.
But why, you may ask
I’ve wondered the same thing.
Here’s what happened: in the winter of 2023, a month or two before I turned 64, and possibly fearing cabin fever, I thought I should get outdoors for some fresh air and exercise. So, I went to a trail along the river, then I went back again the next day, then I started to branch out a little trailwise, and then I started to wonder just how much of the river was viewable by foot, which had to be one of the only things you couldn’t get an answer for on the internet.
But now you can! Because over a span of maybe 30 days, I managed to walk about 102 of its 133 miles. As far as I can determine, this is as much as you can see by foot, and that assumes you’re willing to do a small amount of trespassing. Which it turns out you have to do if you want to see the most interesting stuff. Isn’t that always the way? Before I knew what was happening, I was wandering off trails and sneaking through farm fields, golf courses, train yards, cemeteries, all in a quest to see a river I’ve lived near my whole life and yet knew almost nothing about.
Consider: I grew up just two doors away from the Des Plaines River, in a town called River Grove, off a street called River Road, yet that inadequate little Wikipedia article knew more about the river than I did.
I started to keep a journal about my wanderings, adding notes about the trails and the river and cataloging my iPhone pictures by location. Not that I’m obsessive or anything. Then I built a website as a kind of memento or travelogue, though I suppose you could make a case it’s more of a fan site or a shrine. I sometimes think of it as an online version of the agonizing vacation slideshows I was forced to endure as a child.
So maybe attribute it to restlessness, fear of boredom, curiosity. Maybe I was temporarily insane. Maybe it wasn’t temporary.
The truth is, I’m not entirely sure why I did all of this. But I recall a frigid Thursday morning in early December spent walking the river’s banks in downtown Joliet and being driven into the waterfront casino in search of a rest room and some warmth. As I walked through its jangling, smoky game room, trying in vain to see if its architects had incorporated any views of the river (I think one of its restaurants does, but it wasn’t open), I was in the company of a small handful of gamblers idling at the slot machines and blackjack tables, most of whom, it occurred to me, probably represented my demographic: old, unemployed, bored, lonely. The word “desperate” also crossed my mind. It struck me then that we were all just killing time, and that if I’d been a more successful gambler in my youth, and more sociable in general, I could easily be sitting at one of those blackjack tables myself. I had one of those “there but for the grace of God go I” moments, and then got instantly taken down by the realization they’d say the same about me.
Go ahead, jump in
Thank you for visiting this site. I hope you enjoy it, and learn something new. Chicago wouldn’t be the city it is without the Des Plaines River. The river’s story is Chicago’s story.
— Dan Witte
You can e-mail me at dan.witte@thedesplaines.com