12021-03-02T09:46:21-06:00Kate Flynn89ab0aeaf9441ebcfe2d9d020d3b00b0ffd828731310With Perkins' 1916 victory in his "friendly suit" against the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the statute authorizing the District, and all were welcome to spend an afternoon enjoying the beauty of the Des Plaines River. Forest Preserve District of Cook County records (MSFPDC09), FPDCC_00_01_0001_002, box 0-1-1, item 2, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Illinois Chicago Library.plain2023-09-15T15:19:29-05:00Dan Harpereff3db32ed95b3efe91d381826e2c10c145cd452
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12021-01-25T15:25:22-06:00Perkins Vindicates the Forest Preserves13plain2023-10-06T13:38:45-05:00After their resounding victory at the polls in 1914, allies of the Forest Preserve District wanted to be certain that the new law would pass muster. Dwight Perkins filed a “friendly suit” to establish once and for all the new law's constitutionality and the new district's power to raise and spend money.
As the suit worked its way through the Illinois legal system, one Chicago Tribune journalist wrote that citizens would have to wait before they could spend “a good many July and August days wandering through the big woods, rowing on the Des Plaines river, and picking wild flowers in the glacial meadows and hills of the Sag region.”
Finally in 1916, in Perkins v. Board of County Commissioners, the Illinois Supreme Court approved the new district, holding that the new law overcame equal protection concerns and that the district did, indeed, have the right to issue bonds.
