Lick Creek is a 30.6-mile-long (49.2 km)[1] tributary of Lake Springfield and thus a tributary of the Sangamon River in central Illinois.[2] It drains a large portion of southwestern Sangamon County and a marginal adjacent fragment of southeastern Morgan County. The drainage of Lick Creek includes all of Loami, Illinois and part of Chatham, Illinois.[3]
| Lick Creek | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | |
| • location | Morgan County north of Waverly, Illinois |
| • coordinates | 39°39′10″N 89°58′41″W / 39.6528266°N 89.9781644°W |
| Mouth | |
• location | Confluence with Sugar Creek in Lake Springfield, Illinois |
• coordinates | 39°42′25″N 89°41′11″W / 39.7069959°N 89.6864883°W |
• elevation | 574 ft (175 m) |
| Length | 30 mi (48 km) |
| Basin features | |
| Progression | Lick Creek → Sugar Creek → Sangamon → Illinois → Mississippi → Gulf of Mexico |
| GNIS ID | 412056 |
Much of the Lick Creek drainage is intensely farmed arable land. The drainage also contains 460-acre (1.9 km2) of Wildlife Preserve natural area. When land parcels were condemned for Lake Springfield in the 1920s and 1930s, a large section of the lower Lick Creek bottomland was set aside as woodland to protect the lake's water quality. This 340-acre (1.4 km2) riparian zone was designated as the Lick Creek Wildlife Preserve by its owner, the Springfield, Illinois-based City Water, Light & Power, in 1991. According to Sangamon County, the watershed protection zone contains a notable grove of mixed sugar maples and chinkapin oaks. One chinkapin, located in Camp Widjiwagan, has been dated at more than 300 years of age.[4][5] In addition, a 120-acre (0.49 km2) creekside parcel, the Nipper Wildlife Sanctuary near Loami, has been redesignated for restoration as tallgrass prairie.
Lick Creek gave its name to a short-lived Fourierite phalanx, a Utopian socialist community that operated near Loami in 1845–1846.[6]
The Interurban Trail, a local bike trail, bridges the Lick Creek arm of Lake Springfield. The bridge area forms a local fishing hole.
The U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) shows 12 streams bearing the name Lick Creek in Illinois.
References
edit- ^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map Archived 2012-03-29 at the Wayback Machine, accessed May 13, 2011
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Lick Creek
- ^ Illinois Atlas and Gazetteer. Freeport, Maine: DeLorme Mapping. 1991. ISBN 0-89933-213-7.
- ^ "Sangamon County Regional Plan: May 2009" (PDF). Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission. Retrieved 2010-02-14.
- ^ Young, Chris (5 October 2009). "Carpenter Park loses 400-year-old tree". State Journal-Register.
- ^ Soland, Randall J. (2017). Utopian Communities of Illinois: Heaven on the Prairie. Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: The History Press/Arcadia Publishing. pp. 92–97.
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