Native Americans once bent saplings to grow into directional markers. They signaled such things as where to cross a river and where to enter and exit trails. There are likely only a few hundred original trail trees left in the Great Lakes area. Some are over 200 years old.
A replica of an American mastodon stands near the former Lake County Discovery Museum in Lakewood Forest Preserve near Wauconda. Plans for the fiberglass statue include being repaired and painted and moving it just west of its current location to a site of a future children s nature-based playground.