Our Community’s River

So, you may not have caught on yet, but the Sangamon River is Our Community’s River. Seriously, somebody should write a book about Mahomet and title it: “A River Runs Through It”. Then – after it becomes a best seller – it could become a feature film directed and narrated by Robert Redford and starring Brad Pitt and win an […]

Who’s Watching the River?

The river once told me “people think I’m dirty” So they do. So it is. Many people continue to view the Sangamon River as a ditch that functions primarily to carry away water and drain fields. As a matter of fact, the river truly is quite “dirty.” According to the Illinois DNR, at peak concentration rates, the Sangamon River at […]

A Sangamon River Q & A

(Latest Notes from the River column Now that I’ve been at this for a few weeks, my reader mailbag is filling up. So this week, we reach down into the ol’ mailbag and answer a few of your most pressing questions about the Sangamon River. Q: “Scott, have there ever been any historic places along the Sangamon River that were […]

I was sitting at my ten-year-old Dell laptop the other afternoon when I excitedly said to my wife Carol “You should see these awesome pictures of Bruce’s mussels on the internet!” I guess I didn’t immediately realize how awkward it could have come across. Of course, I wasn’t admiring Bruce’s mussels exactly, I was admiring Bruce’s colorful pictures of the […]

People gathered from all around:  Champaign, Urbana, Mahomet, Dewey; from the Sierra Club, from the Upper Sangamon River Conservancy, and from the Izaak Walton League.  Some were friends and some family, and some destined to become new friends. Some were young and some were old. Some came by mini-van, some by convertible, some by old pick-up truck, and one by […]