The Crab Orchard Wilderness is a parcel of land listed as a

Wilderness Area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...

of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is located within the

Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge is a 43,890 acre (180 km2) National Wildlife Refuge primarily in southwestern Williamson County, but with small extensions into adjacent eastern Jackson and northeastern Union counties of southern Illi ...

in Williamson,

Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

, and

Jackson Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Qu ...

counties in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

Second-growth wilderness

As with other wilderness areas in southern Illinois, the Crab Orchard Wilderness is made of

second-growth A secondary forest (or second-growth forest) is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a timber harvest or clearing for agriculture, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. ...

forested areas that were used, until the land condemnations of the 1930s, as

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

and

pasture Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or swine ...

land. The

United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...

manages the wilderness. The Crab Orchard Wilderness is a roadless parcel of land within a national wildlife refuge. Together with the adjacent Panther Den Wilderness, it forms part of the southern shore of Devils Kitchen Lake. The Crab Orchard Wilderness is accessible by several paved highways. The nearest divided highway is

Interstate 57 Interstate 57 (I-57) is a north–south Interstate Highway in Missouri and Illinois that parallels the old Illinois Central Railroad for much of its route. It runs from Sikeston, Missouri, at I-55 to Chicago, Illinois, at I-94. I-57 essen ...

, which passes through the nearby city of

Marion, Illinois Marion is a city in Williamson and Johnson Counties, Illinois, United States, and is the county seat of Williamson County. The population was 16,855 at the 2020 census. It is part of a dispersed urban area that developed out of the early 20th ...

References

{{coord, 37, 36, 15, N, 89, 05, 17, W, display=title IUCN Category Ib Protected areas established in 1990 1990 establishments in Illinois Protected areas of Jackson County, Illinois Protected areas of Union County, Illinois Protected areas of Williamson County, Illinois Wilderness areas of Illinois