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To Protect and Preserve: An Early History of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Illinois, 1900-1930

Perkins Vindicates the Forest Preserves

After 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.

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Des Plaines River, circa 1904 With 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.