The Oswegoland Heritage Association and Oswego’s Little White School Museum, 72 Polk Street, at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 18 for “From War Plants to Prairie Plants: Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie and the Joliet Arsenal” presented by Midewin Heritage Program Manager and Archaeologist Joe Wheeler. The program host is the heritage association in partnership with the Oswegoland Park District.
Registration is $5, but walk-ins are always welcome the day of the program. To register, call the Oswegoland Park District at 630-554-1010 or visit the park district web site at bit.ly/lwsmwinter.
During World War II, Korea, and Vietnam thousands of area residents worked at the Joliet Arsenal to manufacture ammunition for the Nation’s Armed Forces. Today, Midewin National Tall-grass Prairie is 26 years into an ambitious 100 year program to restore 20,000 acres of the former Joliet Arsenal (1940-1996) to its original ecology as a native tall-grass prairie.
But the history of the Arsenal Era isn’t something to merely glance at in time’s rearview mirror. It represents a pivotal period in the saga of the United States, the Midwest, and Illinois. In preparation to meet the war clouds on the horizon in 1940, more than 50 square miles of prairie settled in the 1830s and turned into farmland was transformed in a matter of months into one of the world’s largest explosives and weapons manufacturing and assembly plants.
—Little White School Museum