Have you ever noticed the immense boulders around Sugar Grove Township?
Some have been used as memorials, such as the Bolster Boulder and hitching post with plaque, now located in the Sugar Grove Cemetery, the Judd Boulder and plaque at the Sugar Grove Community Building, and the Will Johnson Boulder beside the Sugar Grove Historical Society. But how is it we have so many large boulders in Sugar Grove?
At one time, Illinois was covered by a shallow, tropical sea. Much later, four glacial periods covered our area up to a mile thick in ice. When the last glacier, the Wisconsin Glacier, retreated, the weight of the ice sheets dislodged ancient rocks and boulders from deep within the Earth, rolling them across the land, smoothing mountaintops, carving lakes, rivers, and streams, and filling the valleys with rich sediment. The boulders are storytellers of the ancient seabed and remind us of the history of the land that makes our prairies and farmland today. -J.L. Panagopoulos