The influential Friends of Our Native Landscape included the area around the Rock River between Dixon and Oregon on a list of 20 places in Illinois that should be designated state parks. Located in "Rock River country," along an old Indian trail, was White Pines Woods covering in a canyon of dolomite rock carved by Pine Creek. At the time, within White Pines Woods, the tallest trees stood in height. The area was noted by Elia W. Peattie, a poet and member of the Eagle's Nest Art Colony (located at present-day Lowden State Park), who expressed the need for preservation of the White Pines Woods in one of her poems.