Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller, Holly Miller, Jacque Kelly, Nick Kelly, The Orca
Hiking Date: February 5, 2021 & February 27, 2021
We have hiked Possum Creek Metropark Trails over 30 times. The park itself is a conservation area with woodlands, prairies, farm animals and ponds for fishing and camping. Today we focused on the Argonne Forest Purple Trail. In the 1930’s Argonne Forest was a very popular amusement park, ballfield, swimming, dancing and recreation area. Remnants of Argonne Forest are along this wooded trail. Jacque & Holly pose on remains of street cars (Photos 1 & 2) which at one time could be rented to “camp” in overnight or used for concession sales. During the Depression when housing was scarce, the street cars would be rented out as temporary homes.
A couple of crumbling walls and mossy steps (Photo#6) remain from a large swimming pool (Photo#7) created by damming up Possum Creek. The large outside dance floor (Photo#5) and fireplace is very deteriorated but we found a geocaching box (Photo#8) hidden in the fireplace as well as bricks dating back to the 1920’s.
