Peabody Refuge: Roseau Cane at Beaver Lake

The Peabody River King State Wildlife Management Area was a strip mine before it became a wildlife refuge. A really, really big Tonka earthmovers with buckets scouped up the ground, the overburden, and deposited in hills to get at the coal, creating what became long narrow ponds, prime fishing grounds, in the refuge. When the coal played out, Peabody Coal, the owner, donated the mine to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.