Kinkaid area: An inventory of the region's resources

The scene from a fishing boat in Kinkaid Lake???the sandstone bluffs, the patches of piney forest, even the muskie lures in the tackle box???puts visitors in mind of Wisconsin or Minnesota. The lake however is set in southern Illinois, just west of Murphysboro. In the early 1970s the earthen Crisenberry Dam was thrown up across Kinkaid Creek on this spot. The stopped-up creek swelled to 2,350 acres of water with 73 miles of shoreline that became the jewel of this part of Illinois??? Egypt. The sandstone bluffs through which Kinkaid Creek winds on its way to the Big Muddy River form a forested rampart overlooking the Mississippi River. Part of the lake???s charm is the scenic contrast it offers to the more familiar Illinois landscape to the north and east. There, the valleys of Beaucoup Creek and its tributary creeks are wide and flat, covered in farmland rather than forest. A much longer stream (81 miles) than Kinkaid Creek, Beaucoup Creek runs from its origins in Washington County southward through Perry County to its junction with the Big Muddy in Jackson County, just east of Murphysboro. The watersheds of Kinkaid and Beaucoup creeks together cover approximately 629 square miles that mostly lie in Perry, Jackson, and Washington counties. The area is southern Illinois in miniature, with forested hills (some of which are part of the Shawnee National Forest) in the Kinkaid watershed and strip-mine lakes interspersed with farm fields in the Beaucoup watershed.published or submitted for publicatio