Illinois
These Towns In Illinois Come Alive In Spring
Springtime is a beautiful season that marks the awakening of nature after the long and dull winter months. When the sun starts to shine, and the weather is a tad warmer, several towns across the Land of Lincoln come alive with vibrant floral hues, budding tree shoots, and revamped wildlife activity. Some places also welcome the season with long-held cultural events that give the community a fresh lease of life.
From historic river outposts and prairie villages to pastoral suburbs, these lovable towns in Illinois showcase true floral and cultural rebirths each spring. They light up with everything from lush gardens and orchards to outdoor festivals and craft fairs. For those seeking to experience the picturesque transformation of a Prairie State spring in all its glory, the following towns in Illinois make for the perfect weekend getaways.
Oglesby
An oasis of scenic natural beauty, Oglesby is home to the Matthiessen State Park and Starved Rock State Park, among other delightful green spaces. These are perfect to visit when spring comes around. The once-frozen streams in the parks begin to flow, and the waterfalls reclaim their sparkle, looking stunning against the glowing green of moss on the surrounding rocks amidst brightly colored wildflowers. The secluded nature trails reveal a springtime wonderland, with an opportunity to view local wildlife freshly woken from their winter slumber.
The scene is no different at Lehigh Memorial Park, which invites picnickers to enjoy a fun day outside on its lush lawns with family and friends. As the local bar scene gradually regains its vibrancy, this is an excellent opportunity to link up with townsfolk inside Lizzie’s lounge and socialize over a chill bottle of beer or a cocktail.
Lisle
This tiny village in DuPage County boasts a lovely mix of green spaces that become irresistible in the warmer spring season. It is particularly famous for housing the Morton Arboretum, a sprawling tree-focused botanical garden. When the winter snow melts away, the 1,700-acre expanse of the nature area transforms into a radiant display as the trees are filled with green leaves and the fields burst with colorful blooms of wildflowers. The setting is ideal for enjoying a laidback walk exploring the scenes or a picnic.
PrairieWalk Pond is another delightful nature space close to the downtown area that explodes with spring colors. The 4.5-acre site presents a tranquil atmosphere suited for lazy walks, with a small pond with a curvy shore. Besides the outdoors, visitors can also explore the town’s charming past at the Museums at Lisle Station Park, which exhibits various antiques depicting local history and culture.
Benton
Benton is infamously known for being the site of local misfit Charles Birger’s hanging for the murder of Joe Adams, but the town long outgrew this eerie history. Today, you can explore a little bit of this curious past at the Franklin County Historic Jail Museum, where Illinois’s last public hanging unfolded.
However, springtime in Benton leads tourists to Rend Lake, a sprawling reservoir with countless recreational opportunities. Rend Lake comes to its own when the icy waters have melted with rising spring temperatures, teeming with activity from boaters, paddle boarders, and kayakers. The lake shores are perfect for camping, providing a serene scenery with magical views of the water, especially as the sun sets over the horizon. South Marcum Campground is one of the many campsites in the area, with more than 100 developed sites with electricity.
Makanda
This modest community in Jackson County can be pretty sleepy in winter as its almost 600 residents stay confined to avoid the winter chill. But when it is spring and the conditions get milder, locals and visitors alike step outside to explore its beautiful outdoor areas, starting with the expansive Giant City State Park. Set within the Shawnee National Forest, the 4,000-acre preserve beckons outdoor adventurers to witness its green exhibition of budding shoots and tree leaves. The water in the little streams starts to rush and the sound of chirping birds signals the rebirth of the gorgeous oasis.
Makanda is also known for its wine culture, with the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail passing through the town. The mild temperatures are perfect for sampling this side of local culture with a wine-tasting tour of Blue Sky Vineyard. Furthermore, the town’s atmosphere is abuzz during the Maple Syrup Festival, when locals and tourists alike congregate to celebrate family-friendly activities like maple syrup demonstrations and pancake eating.
Galena
Galena’s claim to fame is the home of President Ulysses S. Grant. It boasts a rich historical heritage, evidenced by a treasure trove of 19th-century buildings dotting the town, including the U.S. Grant Home State Historic Site and the Washburne House State Historic Site. Galena is also home to Chestnut Mountain Resort. Although a popular winter destination, the venue maintains its appeal even after the snow has melted, with the trees recovering their green leaves and the ski runs turning into beautiful grassy lawns. Visitors can get on ski rides to get a bird’s eye perspective of the landscape, with enchanting vistas of the Mississippi River.
For more exciting sights, you can hop aboard the Galena Trolley Tours, which take travelers on relaxed sightseeing trips around the downtown core, accompanied by insightful narrations and wonderful photo opportunities.
Homer
Home to just about 1,000 residents, Homer is one of the best towns in Illinois for a springtime staycation, thanks to its vast network of outdoor nature areas. From parks and farms to golf courses, the town turns into a brilliant sea of green worth experiencing. Homer hosts Hidden Acres Park, one of the best places to witness the beauty of blooming wildflowers. A short looping trail winds through the 28-acre park, revealing colorful florals in full bloom and green shoots in a tranquil setting, with the only noise coming from chirping birds.
Another great site to visit is the Homer Lake Forest Preserve, which should leave any first-timer in awe of its brilliant wildlife species and natural beauty. Across the park’s 800+ acre expanse, adventurers can take advantage of diverse recreational opportunities, including hiking, boating, fishing, and nature watching.
Ottawa
Encircled by unique nature areas, pristine rivers, and scenic trails, Ottawa is a pleasant hub for the outdoor inclined, which comes to life in the mild springtime conditions. The town provides access to the Illinois River and Lake Michigan, promising exciting adventures on land and water. Buffalo Rock State Park is a great site to visit during spring, offering wild nature trails and picnic shelters amidst a lush forest. It also features two observation decks with sweeping vistas of the Illinois River.
Meanwhile, Allen Park presents an alternative outdoor attraction with the amenities to get you on the water. Despite its relatively small size, the area is pretty popular and houses a boat launch for those looking to explore the Illinois River. Alternatively, you can book a stay at Heritage Harbor to make the most of incredible boating experiences.
Belleville
Nicknamed “Stove Capital of the World,” Belleville was home to Illinois’ first brewery. The town boasts a rich manufacturing history that visitors can explore at the Labor and Industrial Museum. Housed inside is a collection of more than 1,000 artifacts reflecting on past lifetimes in Belleville. However, the major town attraction during spring is the Belleville Strawberry Festival. During this weekend-long extravaganza, festivalgoers gather at Eckert’s Belleville Farm to pick their strawberries and engage in different family-friendly activities. These include everything from carnival rides and farm animal petting to wagon rides. Meanwhile, fans of the Silver Screen can visit Lincoln Theatre to catch the latest movies on the Box Office in a friendly venue, ideal for the whole family.
Grafton
Sitting at the confluence of the Mississippi River and Illinois River, this quiet community in Jersey County promises plenty of water-based adventures to welcome the warmer spring temperatures. It is surrounded by secluded nature areas and beautiful open spaces worth exploring in the mild conditions. This does not get better than Pere Marquette State Park, which straddles over 8,000 acres, allowing adventurers to immerse in the town’s wilderness. Harboring lush forests, scenic trails, and dramatic bluffs, the recreational hub comes to life with blooming plants, active wildlife, and chirping birds.
This is also an opportune time to ride the Grafton SkyTour at Aerie’s Resort and soak in the awe-inspiring vistas of the Illinois-Mississippi Rivers confluence. Also, do not forget to visit the Grafton Harbor for a chance to get on the water.
The Takeaway
Each of the beautiful towns in Illinois above has its way of welcoming the spring season, whether through a colorful display of blooms in state parks and farmlands or remarkable cultural festivals that bring the community together. Whichever the case, they are a demonstration of the fresh breath of air that springtime is, making it a highly anticipated time of the year for many. You can enjoy nature walks in the wild and partake in local festivals during this colorful season.
Illinois
Illinois awards AD Josh Whitman a new contract worth more than $31 million over the next 10 years
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Illinois has extended athletic director Josh Whitman’s contract through 2036, committing more than $31 million over the next 10 years on the heels of a series of standout seasons for the department and its teams.
The university’s board of trustees approved the new deal for Whitman at its regular meeting on Thursday. The fifth-longest tenured AD among the four power conferences will make $2.15 million during the 2026-27 school year, a salary increase of more than 40%.
Whitman is scheduled to receive $100,000 raises annually before a $200,000 bump to $3.15 million in the final year of the agreement and a $500,000 retention bonus each June 30 that he remains on the job at Illinois.
The contract also includes additional incentives of up to $500,000 annually related to performance goals set by the university chancellor and three automatic one-year extensions through 2039 if certain Illini football and men’s basketball performance measures are met.
Whitman, a former Illinois football player, was hired in 2016. This was the fifth time his contract has been amended. The men’s basketball team reached the NCAA Final Four in April for the first time in 21 years. The football team won 19 games over the last two seasons, a program record for that span. Illini athletics also set a revenue record for a fourth consecutive year and topped $200 million for the first time in 2025-26, according to the board of trustees meeting memo.
ESSEX, Ill. – It’s been two days since we first told you about Constellation Energy buying several hundred acres of land in or near the Village of Essex and it’s still anyone’s guess what they are going to do with all of that land.
Fox Chicago’s Unit 32 brought you this story and our Bret Buganski is still on the hunt for some answers.
“My thought is, well, I think we lost our butts and our house because we bought it at the premium golf course price and now we are essentially could be having a data center in our backyard,” Essex resident Taylor Gunier said.
Gunier and her family moved into this house last summer.
She has spent the last year working with other concerned residents to figure out what Constellation is going to do with the 700 acres of land they have purchased in and around Essex from June 2025 to February 2026.
Data center in Essex?
The backstory:
Following a Freedom of Information request to the Kankakee County Recorder, a Unit 32 investigation found Constellation spent $47.5 million dollars in fourteen different land deals.
Property records reviewed by Fox Chicago show the company purchased at least 505 acres in just nine months. The total is likely higher because some of the public records did not include the number of acres sold each time.
Unit 32 also found that two Essex Village Board members were sellers in five of those transactions.
“Essex does not have any industrial zoning ordinances, which I think is part of why Constellation chose us. We would have been an easy target with few regulations for them to abide by,” said Essex resident Kylee Raney.
Raney is part of the Essex Coalition, a group of concerned residents following every move between the Essex Village Board and Constellation Energy.
It has also been making some of its own moves.
“We’ve worked with a third party consultant and we have built out a draft of industrial zoning ordinances. They are based off of the Kankakee County industrial zoning ordinances along with some ordinances from Yorkville and the data center that is being built there. So we made sure to keep the language broad so it could cover a multitude of industrial uses, but we wanted to make sure the umbrella of that language included data centers. So we have a petition and we have doubled the numbers of our signatures there. The petition is to urge our village board members to pass industrial zoning ordinances. Even if you don’t know what they’re gonna build, even if Constellation doesn’t have their customer yet, you can put protections, legal protections, legally binding protections in place to ensure that we can mitigate noise pollution, sound pollution, we can monitor water usage. There are lots of avenues that we can take to build out the regulations to protect our future. No matter what happens,” Raney said.
While Raney says Constellation has not told them what they’re going to use the land for, the village board seems to be taking precautions for a data center.
On their website, the Essex Village Board wrote it “… has issued a formal notice establishing development standards and mitigation requirements for a proposed data center facility that may be located within the village.”
It also posted a letter. The subject line says it is a notice about “development standards and required mitigation response plan” for a data center.
What they’re saying:
“Now, as far as buying that big land in Illinois, there could be multiple reasons. I don’t know what they’re going do with it,” said Mohammad Shahidapur, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Shahidapur has been teaching for 43 years.
Given his background, we asked him for his objective opinion as to what Constellation could be doing with all of this land.
“They could be building a big solar farm because having a nuclear unit, we can sort of reduce the issues because sun doesn’t shine all the time. So then once the sun is shining, you know, basically, they can sell that and then when the sun is not shining they can replace it by nuclear. That could be one reason. They could be also going after data centers in a sense maybe they’re lining up with some of these tech companies to build more data centers and providing power through their nuclear units, so it’s sort of a joint venture,” Shahidapur said
The statement Constellation sent us when our story first aired says in part: “Constellation is seeking to annex land into Essex near the Braidwood Clean Energy Center to help the company strategically market the facility’s carbon-free generation to potential future developers.”
“So, obviously, I’m not an insider at the company, but if I’m a betting man, I would bet based on buying a bunch of land, looking to annex it, that they’re looking to build out one of these data centers,” said Andrew Rocco, a stock strategist with Zacks Investment Research based in Chicago.
Rocco’s focus is on the tech industry and where it overlaps with the energy sector.
So we also asked him for his unofficial analysis on what he thinks Constellation may do with the 700 acres of land they purchased in and around Essex:
“Braidwood is the largest nuclear plant in Illinois. And as I mentioned before, getting these nuclear facilities through the regulatory red tape, even though kind of the Trump administration has said they’re pro-nuclear, but still there’s a ton of regulatory red tape and really nothing has been approved in the last 10 or 20 years. So having this already built out, I think it does around 2,400 megawatts of carbon-free baseload electricity. So this is exactly what these large tech companies are looking for. They’re looking for an immense amount of energy, dependable and clean. Now you can look at natural gas as an alternative to something like this, because obviously the startup costs are going to be lower for natural gas. And natural gas is very, very cheap. And it makes up the most amount of energy produced in the U.S. currently. But once you have a nuclear reactor already running, this one’s been running since the late 80s, you don’t have to worry about that. So the upfront costs have already been paid for. Now they’re looking likely to secure this large plot of land nearby to put a data center in and just connect it right up to that massive nuclear plant.”
Again — that is Rocco’s unofficial opinion on what Constellation may be doing with all that land.
Unit 32 reached out to Constellation to see if they would tell us what was going to happen with all of the land they bought in and around Essex. They told us that since they do not have a customer, they do not have any plans.
The Source: The information in this report came from interviews with Essex residents, statements from the Essex Village Board and Constellation Energy along with interviews with stock strategist Andrew Rocco and IIT professor Mohammad Shahidapur.
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