Starved Rock cracks 2 million visitors for 7th straight year

Starved Rock State Park has passed 2 million visitors and counting this year despite COVID-19 (or maybe because of the virus), while mostly-reopened Matthiessen is headed for a down year.

Friday, the park office released final attendance figures for the month of October. Starved Rock welcomed 285,478 visitors. That’s not a record, but it is 10% above the October average and it thrust the yearly total 2,031,807 and counting.

Despite being shut down much of spring, and the entire month of April, Starved Rock has now cracked 2 million visitors seven consecutive years. The park will not set an attendance record this year — the 2.8 million recorded in 2017 is out of reach — but the park’s popularity seems pandemic-proof.

Meanwhile, Site Superintendent Alvin Harper reported 37,538 visitors to Matthiessen State Park, which was closed completely in September following the derecho storm and gradually reopened since. The October total is nearly 15% below its same-month average, but access had been limited while workers repaired extensive storm damage.

“Matthiessen is about 90% open,” Harper said Friday, noting he extended horseback dates to accommodate riders hoping to capitalize on bad weather.

The storm damage and the novel coronavirus took a toll on Matthiessen, which is on pace for just 387,000 visitors — the lowest yearly total in six years.

The closures have been a mixed bag for park staff and for Utica, Starved Rock’s host community. On the down side, Utica’s retail sales plunged during the April closure, underscoring the village’s dependence on tourist receipts.

On the other hand, the closures also provided park staff with a rare opportunity to make infrastructure improvements without interruption or distraction. The extended shutdowns produced trail repairs, tree removal and gradual overgrowth on the “goat trails” that visitors mistook for marked paths.

Collectively, these improvements kept visitors on marked trails, reduced accidents and eased the strain on Utica’s first-responders.

Utica Fire Chief Ben Brown looked at his year-to-date figures and noticed the overall call volume is up 17%. Starved Rock remains a hot spot for medical calls.

The vast majority of calls were for minor injuries resulting from on-trail accidents, such as twisted ankles. Not counting a March suicide, first-responders haven’t had a major fall or fatality in 2020 that put first-responders at risk.

“I’d rather see trail injuries than major falls,” Brown said. “Incidents with injury are down and we’d like to keep it that way.”