The Waukegan River, a small river in
Lake County, Illinois
Lake County is situated in the northeastern corner of the U.S. state of Illinois, along the shores of Lake Michigan. As of the 2020 census, it has a population of 714,342, making it the third-most populous county in Illinois. Its county seat ...
, is a member of the very small class of Illinois rivers that flow into
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
. It drains part of the city of
Waukegan, Illinois
''(Fortress or Trading Post)''
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, including the city's historic downtown area. The river's drainage area comprises 7,785.63 acres. The drainage is managed by the city of Waukegan.
Geological features associated with the end of the
Wisconsin glaciation
The Wisconsin Glacial Episode, also called the Wisconsin glaciation, was the most recent glacial period of the North American ice sheet complex. This advance included the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which nucleated in the northern North American Cor ...
ensured that most of that portion of Illinois that drains into the
St. Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...
is covered in water. Only a thin strip of land on the extreme northeastern coast of Illinois naturally drains into Lake Michigan and from thence to Canada. The Waukegan River, a river of less than three miles in length, drains part of this ribbon-like strip. Only a short distance away, the western neighborhoods of Waukegan drain into the
Des Plaines River
The Des Plaines River () is a river that flows southward for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed May 13, 2011 through southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois''American Her ...
, which flows in a completely different direction.
The mouth of the river is marked by
Waukegan Harbor Light.
References
Rivers of Lake County, Illinois
Rivers of Illinois
Waukegan, Illinois
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