Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area preserves 2,537 acres near Morris, including one of Illinois’s important surviving tallgrass prairie remnants on a flat wet plain shaped after the Wisconsin glaciation. Once a wetland rich in wildlife, the area was altered over time by pottery clay digging, drainage, coal mining, and later major energy development, including Heidecke Lake along the park’s northern edge. Beginning in 1969, Illinois assembled and restored the site, reconnecting prairie fragments changed by more than a century of disturbance. Today it protects rare prairie species, notable bird habitat, historic industrial sites, and a vivid reminder of the vast tallgrass ecosystem that once covered much of the state.