Fall Campout

Harvest Moon Campout

White Oak Campground
Utica, IL

Directions:

History of Starved Rock

The Starved Rock landscape was formed by a series of floods about 450 million years ago. As glaciers melted, the resulting water broke through moraines (hills formed by the dirt that was pushed along by moving glaciers) and scoured the land, leaving the magnificent rock structures and canyons we enjoy today.

The area has been home to humans since the Hopewellian, Woodland, and Mississippian Native American cultures thrived there as early as 8000 B.C. More recently, from the 1500s through the 1700s, the area across the river from Starved Rock State Park and the White Oak Campground, was a Kaskaskia Indian village. As many as 7,000 people lived there at any given time.

The area gained the name Starved Rock from a Native American legend. The legend claims that during the 1760s, Pontiac, the chief of the Ottowa tribe, was slain by an Illiniwek Indian. According to legend, a group of Illiniwek Indians who were being attacked in retaliation for Chief Pontiac's murder, sought refuge atop a 125-foot sandstone cliff. Rather than surrender to their enemies, the Illiniwek stayed on top of the cliff until they starved to death.

Today, the area is a state park with over 13 miles of hiking trails connecting over 15 different canyons and scenic overlooks stretched along 4 miles of the Illinois river.