Gompers Park Nature Area

The Gompers Park Wetland is connected to a long, partly channeled stretch of the North Branch of the Chicago River. The Gompers Park Wetland is fed by two sources of water- a small stream leading from the fishing lagoon, and floodwater from the North Branch of the Chicago River. When water floods over the banks of the North Branch and into the wetland, the water loving vegetation and hydric soils hold and slowly release the water, reducing the possibility of flooding properties downstream.

For a time, though, Gompers Park lacked a wetland. In the 1950’s and 1960’s the original wetland was filled in for mosquito abatement. The area was converted to a grassy lawn that was wet most of the year. As perceptions of wetlands changed, people realized that wetlands are neither eyesores, nor mosquito havens, but are good wildlife habitat, an integral part of Chicago’s natural landscape, and important for flood control. In the early 1990’s government agencies identified the area as a restoration site and a decision was made to excavate the wet grassy lawn.

In 1995 the lawn was excavated and planted with wetland plant species that would provide food and shelter for many herons, frogs, fish, dragonflies, muskrats, and other wildlife. The wetland has different biotic zones ranging from wetland to mesic prairie. The wetter zones are filled with water loving vegetation such as pickerelweed, bulrush, and arrowhead, while prairie grasses, sedges and forbs such as rattlesnake master make up the tallgrass prairie section. The wetland benefits greatly from the dedication and hard work of community volunteers, who pull weeds, scatter seed, plant prairie; pick up trash, and monitor bird and butterfly species.

Surrounded by mature stands of oak trees, some more than 200 years old, the Gomper’s Park lagoon is one of the city’s hottest fishing spots. In 2000 the Chicago Park District restored this one-acre lagoon by deepening the lagoon, improving the lagoon edge with aquatic plantings, and adding limestone-fishing stations and boardwalks. The restored lagoon thrives with aquatic life including stocked fish, waterstriders, crayfish, dragonflies and other insects, turtles, tadpoles, and frogs. Also herons are often seen feeding on the lively abundance of food along the water’s edge