It doesn’t look like it, but this was a slough when I was taking the bus from Gate 6 in Lakewood to Crystal Lake Community High School.

I used to love to look at the red winged blackbirds that nested there.

I never saw and egrets or herons in the late 1950’s, but I did see a kingfisher diving for food in the West End while fishing early one morning in the summer of 1958. I have seen this past summer and fall at Crystal Lake’s outlet.

This picture pf the old slough missed the mud where you can see the dirt in what is used for a parking lot for the Dole Mansion’s Gala and the Lakeside Festival, but you can see where the ponding was.

The Crystal Lake Country Club has a subdivision map of Country Club Additions which shows the slough.