New Lake County bridge brings vision closer to reality
Early last Saturday, a 220-foot-long steel bridge was skillfully lifted and set in place as the key element of a longtime vision to connect two Lake County forest preserves and two regional trail systems.
Under bright lights, top officials with the Lake County Forest Preserve District and others gathered about 1 a.m. for the culmination of a five-day process to install the bridge over the Metra tracks near Lake Forest.
Delivered in five sections and assembled on site, the new span was placed on top of, and within the decorative abutments of, an old bridge removed long ago from the former estate of meatpacking magnate J. Ogden Armour.
The bridge was part of the driveway from Armour's estate home west of the tracks to Waukegan Road.
"There's an element of history there that we left," said Randy Seebach, the district's director of planning and land preservation.
The bridge installation had to be done in about an hour between passing trains starting about 1:30 a.m.
Katherine Hamilton-Smith, director of public affairs and development for the forest preserve district, described the work as a "dance" of cranes to get the bridge from horizontal to vertical and move it from the tracks to create the span. The work was compressed to 29 seconds and posted on YouTube.
"This alone would be impressive. But there was something almost magical in it happening in the middle of the night," with trains rushing by, she said.
"It was a fun thing. It was once in a lifetime," said Mike Rummel, a Lake County Board member and forest preserve commissioner representing the Lake Forest area.
"This has been a culmination of 10 years of a vision. The abutment has been there, the bridge has not," added Rummel, the former Lake Forest mayor.
The bridge links a 10-foot-wide, paved trail being built on either side. That will connect the existing trail system at Middlefork Savanna to the former Armour Estate (Lake Forest Academy) and then south to Route 60 and Lake Forest's Townline Community Park.
A scenic overlook with a milelong view of Middlefork also is part of the project, and improvements will be made to the crosswalk at Route 60 and Academy Drive.
The forest preserve district contributed about 60 percent of the $762,000 in funding for the work and is the lead agency for the project that also involves the city of Lake Forest, Lake Forest Academy, Lake Forest Bank & Trust, Lake Forest Open Lands Association, and Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein. Federal funding also was secured.
Construction began last March. Work is on hold this week for the BMW Championship nearby. The new trail is rough graded and is expected to be completed in short order afterward.
The project is part of an overall effort to connect the Middlefork Savanna and McArthur Woods Forest Preserve, as well as the Middlefork Greenway and the Des Plaines River Trail to the west.
Part of that already has been built by Mettawa and the Illinois Toll Highway Authority, but gaps remain.