Lake Ellyn Park

Settlers from eastern states began arriving in the 1830s, but for hundreds of years before that Native Americans sought out and used the mineral springs, and some established a large camp in what is now Churchill Woods Forest Preserve, just east of the springs and northeast of today’s Lake Ellyn Park. In 1889, waters from the springs were analyzed at Rush Medical College in Chicago, and researchers found that each spring had its own mineral properties and content, leading to names based on those findings. Jupiter Spring had magnetic properties and was believed to energize the body and boost circulation; Alpin Spring contained magnesium and was believed to build bones and cure headaches, chronic pain, asthma, and sleep disorders; Angelo Spring contained carbonic acid and was believed to benefit the cardiovascular system; Vesta Spring contained iron and was believed to boost production of red blood cells; and Juno Siloam Spring, named for an ancient pool near Jerusalem where Jesus is said to have restored sight to a man born blind, had no identified mineral content. Mud from around the springs was believed to have medicinal benefits and was packaged and sold, while a nationwide advertising campaign drew visitors from Chicago and around the country to the Five Mineral Springs. Stonemasons built enclosures around each spring to make taking the waters more convenient for guests at the nearby hotel, and an elegant thirty-nine-foot-high wooden pavilion was built over the springs. The springs remained in use for a few years after the nearby Hotel Glen Ellyn declined, then slowly fell into disrepair, and as neighboring towns began drawing on the aquifers for water, the spring water stopped bubbling to the surface. In 1922, Glen Ellyn and twenty-two neighboring towns switched to Lake Michigan drinking water, and as a result local aquifers were restored. In the fall of 1963, excavators dredging a spring-fed pond on the property of Judge and Mrs. Joseph Perry, near the former location of the Five Mineral Springs, uncovered huge bones twelve to sixteen feet down in clay and peat from the last ice age. Work stopped, an eight-day archaeological dig began, and when a jaw bone was found, scientists determined that the remains were a mastodon. The wet clay at the site helped preserve the ten-thousand-year-old bones, and today the bones and reconstructed skeleton of the Perry Mastodon are housed nearby at the Wheaton College Science Center.

Glen Ellyn, Illinois · United States