After flooding, Channahon Township resort property to get new life as Park District space

CHANNAHON – Just a couple years ago, a half-dozen dilapidated old homes and outbuildings along the DuPage River in Channahon Township were all that was left of a once-vibrant summer resort.

The obscure little road named Chanooka Lane starts behind Channahon’s Three Rivers School on Ford Road, winds by the river and merges with Timberwood Lane.

Now all the homes are gone – some destroyed by fires or ravaged by flooding – and the short gravel lane overgrown with grass looks like it has always been just a walking path.

The few homes and outbuildings that remained until recently were purchased by the Will County Land Use Department as part of a $5.1 million grant designed to aid areas hit hard by the 2008 flooding.

The Channahon Township properties were part of 40 in a buyout program under the state’s Community Development Block Grant – Disaster Recovery “Ike” Program. Other properties are in Plainfield along the DuPage River and in Crete Township along Plum Creek.

According to lifelong Chanooka Lane resident Barb Allen, the homes were built as summer cottages for the wealthy, including one former Joliet mayor.

Allen’s home, which was built in the 1930s and owned by her parents, isn’t part of the flood plain and still is standing. Allen grew up in the house, and it’s the last remaining older home along the lane.

The Channahon Township property was turned over to the Channahon Park District a year ago after the county completed its demolition.

The 10 or so acres eventually will be used for access to the river, fishing and picnics, park district Executive Director Chuck Szoke said. He said there’s no timeline for the land’s use.

More cleanup needs to be done before it opens to the public. The area cannot have any permanent structures on it because it is in a flood zone.

“The whole purpose of the [grant] program was to remove features that would be damaged by future flooding,” Szoke said. “Our interest in acquiring the open space [is] because it’s contiguous to the river.”

Growing up along the DuPage River was wonderful, said Allen. She had many friends down and around the curve on Chanooka Lane. She recalled hunting fossils on the riverbed and playing Kick the Can until after dark, when her father would drive down and honk his horn to go home.

There was once a skinny footpath along the river through the yards that she and her friends would take to each other’s homes.

“We even had a cool call to let them know we were coming,” Allen said.

While it’s sad that the cottages are gone and the area has undergone such a dramatic change, it was time, she said.

“It got hit by so many floods, after awhile they couldn’t keep [them] up,” Allen said.