Nature
Charles Mound, in northwestern Illinois near Scales Mound and Galena, rises 1,235 feet as the state’s highest natural point and the lowest state highpoint in the Midwest. A natural erosional remnant of the Driftless Area rather than a human-built mound, it stands in unglaciated terrain shaped more by erosion than by glacial deposition. Named for early settler Elijah Charles, who arrived in 1828 and settled at its base, it also preserves Silurian Edgewood Dolomite over older Ordovician Maquoketa Formation rock, with nearby fossil-bearing layers and an abandoned lead-zinc prospecting shaft. Its importance lies in being Illinois’s summit and a distinctive Driftless landform.
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Scales Mound, Illinois · United States
