Fox River Trail North Photos
I90 Underpass, Pratt's Castle, Elgin

Continuing south on the Fox River Trail (FRT) between Dundee and Elgin the trail goes under Interstate 90, shown in the distance in the photo above.

The FRT is mostly smooth here but there are some rough patches. This photo is just south of I90 near the Trout Park Rivers Edge entrance and before the castle.

Yes, there is a castle along the bike trail. The next 2 photos show what is called Pratt's Castle which is along the trail just north of the town of Elgin.

The castle is definitely an interesting structure, a nice landmark on the trail and maybe worthy of a few photos but that's about it. The castle is privately owned and there is no access or trespassing.

I'm not going to post all that have learned about Pratt's Castle since these pages are about the Fox RIver Trail and there is plenty of information on the internet about this already.  I will include a link at the bottom of this page though if you are interested in this and want to know more.

One bad thing that I have noticed about this location is that there must be some sewage treatment or something going on here since it is usually very stinky here (especially on a humid day). So I sometimes think of this as Stinky Castle :-)  Maybe not so great if they ever want to open this up to the public...

Then after the castle, you go past the Elgin Water Treatment building and Slade Avenue Park. SInce it has the water treatment and park too I call this area the "water park" (for easy reference).

It actually does not stink in this location like it does at the castle so I guess they ship the bad stuff up the river to the castle or process the water here in the cleaner part of the river.

Then after the water park (water plant and park area) the FRT has one more wooded section before you get to the Library park area and downtown Elgin.