Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve is a 900-acre county park and nature reserve in Illinois that opened in 1948 and serves as both a recreational landscape and a center for interpreting the natural and human history of eastern Illinois. Operated by the Champaign County Forest Preserve District, it includes the Museum of the Grand Prairie, with exhibits on the region’s former tallgrass prairie communities, Abraham Lincoln’s 1850s law practice, a reconstructed blacksmith shop, and children’s installations. The preserve also features the Mabery Gelvin Botanical Garden, Buffalo Trace Prairie, the 100-foot HI-Tower Bell Carillon, a reconstructed covered bridge, and community gathering spaces.