In our year-long quest to fulfill the “365 Hiker’s Challenge”—hiking 365 miles in 12 months—my wife and I look for hiking trails near our home. Within an hour’s drive is ideal.
Most of our hikes are along the nearby Rock River Trail or Hennepin Canal Trail—we access both just a few blocks from the house. Those are great trails with some beautiful views and a variety of wildlife, including bald eagles. When time is limited and we want to get in a 3-4 miles, that’s where we go.
On the all-too-rare occasion we have more time, we venture further away.
Last Saturday was an unseasonably warm, sunny day for northwest Illinois in early March. Afternoon temps reached the low 70s, and we did not want to miss the opportunity to get outside. So, I opened the AllTrails app on my phone, looking for ideas.
In Freeport, about 40 minutes north of us, AllTrails brought up a couple of places we’ve been to before—Krape Park and the Jane Adams Trail. We’ve biked the Jane Adams and hiked the Krape Park perimeter trail several times. But then I saw another location I didn’t know existed—the Oakdale Nature Preserve.
Oakdale isn’t a large park (133 acres), but it does have over four miles of trails through forests and restored prairies, as well as several stream crossings. We decided to give it a try before heading to Krape Park.
We were not disappointed!
Admittedly this isn’t the time of year when nature puts on a beautiful, colorful display. The trees were bare, of course (except for those tenacious oak leaves!), and the prairie grass had long turned shades of tan. Nevertheless, it’s a lovely park with plenty of scenic variety as well as some wildlife. Saw a few deer and scared a woodchuck down its hole.
A stream meanders through the park, offering some picturesque scenery. At one point, cliff walls bordered one side of the stream; the path hugged the other. In several places, downed trees spanned the stream, providing frames for the creative photographer.
On a whim, I wondered if there were any geocaches in the park. Checked the app, and sure enough there is one. When we got close, the coordinates showed it about 30 yards or so off the trail. Finding a way to it, though, was quite a challenge!
One of the unpleasant features of the park is an invasive thorny plant that seems to have spread throughout some of the forest’s undergrowth. It’s like it decided to proliferate around this cache sight! Chris stayed on the trail, wisely, as I ventured in. Slowly, gingerly lest my clothing get snagged.
Finally found the cache—plenty of treasures inside for kids to discover, too. I snagged a travelbug to take with us and hide in a cache somewhere else.
Normally, a nature preserve has few if any buildings. Maybe a picnic shelter or two—or more, depending on the size of the preserve—and restroom facilities. That’s about it.
When you enter Oakdale, though, what stands out is a large octagonal structure. At first, it reminded me of some of the barns we saw when we lived in Vermont, and I thought that might be what it was. But then I noticed that each of the eight sides had large, wide doors that slid open. Ruled out a barn.
As we approached the building, a large sign attached to the wall explained its history and significance.
The “Oakdale Tabernacle,” the sign read, “was built as a Tabernacle or Chautauqua. It was part of an educational and religious movement popular in the United States in the late 1880s and early 1900s. This was the site of entertainment and summer revivals with preachers, speakers, musicians, showmen, and specialists of the day.”
Ah, I recalled…the Chautauqua Movement. Had to do a little digging to refresh my memory.
I discovered that the movement began in 1874 by a Methodist Episcopal minister and a businessman at a campsite located on Chautauqua Lake in the southwest corner of New York state. Its original purpose was to train Sunday School teachers in a summer camp setting. As the popularity of the training camps grew, the Chautauqua Institution was formed.
Within a few years, a movement spread throughout the United States, and the purpose expanded broadly to become “an adult education and social movement,” bringing “entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers, musicians, showmen, preachers, and specialists of the day.” [according to Wikipedia]
Although some Chautauqua assemblies still gather every year, the movement as such is dead.
The building in Oakdale testifies both to the spread of the Chautauqua movement as well as its demise. The site of the original summer training camp is about 600 miles east of Freeport, Illinois. But there this relic stood, in far from pristine condition. In fact, the sign read, “In 2012, the Park District closed the Tabernacle for public use and it sat unused for years. In 2020, the Tabernacle was slated for demolition.…”
Fortunately, creative thinkers formulated another plan, and efforts are underway to fund the restoration of the building.
Several things struck me about this find.
First, the decaying building speaks of something lost in our collective culture. People have neither the time nor the inclination to spend an entire day—and maybe even a week—in such a venue to listen to educational talks. The entertainment age has largely robbed us of such a capacity—let alone interest.
Second, the original purpose of the summer camps on Lake Chautauqua—the religious training of Sunday School teachers—eventually morphed into a movement offering all kinds of things to appeal to a wider audience and gain greater popularity. Alas, where is any of it now?
As I reflected on this “morphing,” I recalled seeing a montage of videos from so-called church services on Super Bowl Sunday morning. Looked like anything but a church service, with more than one church treating the Bible like a football, kicking it for points. Seriously? Seems some churches think they have to come up with such stuff to appeal to a wider audience and gain popularity.
Third, along those same lines, it seems that, on the one hand, there’s little appetite for preaching and teaching from the Bible. Used to be, buildings like the Oakdale Tabernacle could be filled with people of all ages wanting to hear from God’s Word. A recent article in our local newspaper reported on a month-long series of Billy Sunday meetings in Dixon in the early 1900s. Held in February with frigid temperatures, thousands attended the nightly meetings!
Wouldn’t happen today.
Church membership has declined dramatically in just the last 25 years. In 2000, 69% of adults in the US were members of a church. Today, only around 50% are members, with fewer than 20% of adults in the US attending church regularly.
Obviously, not much of an appetite.
I wonder how much of that is due to general cultural decline and how much is due to the decline within Christianity itself. Far too many churches have either watered down or largely abandoned orthodox Christian teaching to be “culturally relevant,” to gain respectability with intellectual elites, or simply to avoid going against the grain of popular thinking. Kicking the Bible for a field goal???
Well, I don’t have all the sociological answers for why the Oakdale Tabernacle would unlikely be filled for a preaching service, but I see such relics of the past and I’m haunted by a text from Amos:
Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.
– Amos 8:11 (ESV)
