Eagle's Nest Art Colony

Eagle's Nest Colony was established in 1897 as a summer home by a group of Chicago artists and writers led by Lorado Taft. Artists Ralph Clarkson, Nellie V. Walker, Charles Francis Browne, and Oliver Dennett Grover; writers Hamlin Garland and Henry Blake Fuller; poet Harriet Monroe, and architects Allen and Irving Pond were among the residents who shared 13 acres of forest on a Rock River bluff. The campers staged outdoor plays, lectured, and contributed paintings to exhibitions at the local library. Lorenzo Taft's "Black Hawk," a reinforced concrete sculpture, was a gift to the colony. Taft's 1936 death ended the colony and the camp was acquired by Northern Illinois State Teachers College (now Northern Illinois University) in 1950.