Illinois’ Horseshoe Lake: Largemouth Bass, Indian Mound and Buried Treasure

A river bend long abandoned by the meandering Mississippi River is the central feature of Horseshoe Lake State Park, located a few miles north of Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.

The Mississippian population that was part of the Cahokia complex created not just a series of burial and ceremonial mounds at the city center between 900 and 1200 AD, but numerous mounds in outlying areas. That includes a 210-foot-long mound at Horseshoe Lake which is nearly two acres in size. The Horseshoe Lake Mound is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The 2,960-acre park with its one-time river bed provides a scenic background to modern day fisherman and picnickers, not to mention bird hunters. Being geologically old, the lake is silting up and averages only three feet in depth.

Fishing

Being in the low-lying Mississippi River floodplain, fisherman at the shallow, crescent-shaped lake benefit from the exchange with the river by way of drainage ditches during spring flooding.

It’s a fisherman’s paradise with plenty of largemouth bass in the four-to-six pound range, say experts. There’s good bank fishing, better fishing from boats limited to 50 horsepower with three boat ramps. In place is a 15-inch, three-fish limit for largemouth bass to preserve smaller fry.

In addition to the bass are channel catfish, bass, crappie, bluegill, carp, and buffalo. Lake sampling has turned up flathead catfish 40-pounds or more in size. Fishermen using tiny jigs or flies have netted invasive plankton-eating Asian bighead carp of up to 50 pounds.

For the trophy hunters, there are the big fish, but for others there are plenty of bluegill and yellow bass for bank-fishing families with youngsters.

There is also a disabled-accessible fishing pier at the lake.

Picnicking

The park includes five picnic shelters and numerous smaller, park-and-picnic locations around the lake. Families will also find three separate playgrounds, soccer fields, and two volleyball areas.

Campers will find 48 tent and trailer non-electric sites.with a sanitary dump station, pit toilets, and water hydrants in the camping area between May 1st and October 31st. Reservations are not accepted; campsites are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Hiking

There are 4.5 miles of hiking trails winding through the park. It’s a scenic setting focused on a shallow-water habitat that attracts wading birds like the great blue heron and the green egret as well as migratory waterfowl like Canada geese.

Horseshoe Lake is one of the top dove-hunting sites in Illinois, attracted by managed sunflower fields, with wing shooters averaging eight birds per hunt. During the season, 50 hunters a day are allowed on the peninsula surrounded by the lake where the hunting is permitted.

There are also 29 waterfowl blinds with 1,000 acres of water for the fall waterfowl season, spring wild turkey hunting, fall archery deer season, along with a permit-controlled pheasant hunt for 40 hunters with a daily drawing, as needed.

There’s also rabbit, quail, and crow hunting, and trapping.

Up to 40 pheasant hunters a day are selected by a daily drawing at the park office. Rabbit hunters and quail hunters must have a valid site pheasant-hunting permit and those animals may be taken only on the first day of the controlled pheasant hunting season.

Gangster Treasure

A Mafia boss in nearby St Louis left a secret stash that remains at Horseshoe Lake. Vito Giannola’s “Green Gang” operated a still on a farm near the lake back in the 1920’s. He came to the United States from Sicily as a buttonman in the local mob, but battled his way to the top to become the Midwest’s first real Mafiosi chieftain. The don pulled in $20,000 a week as his share of the take and that’s in 1920’s dollars. Giannola spent his money on the expected perks for a man in his position. But for a retirement plan, he had limited options. So, once a week, he began crammed large denomination greenbacks into a number of waterproof lunch pails, drove to the farm at Horseshoe Lake where he left his bodyguard and strode off into the woods. Over time, he reportedly buried 22 of the waterproof lunch pails. Giannola’s luck turned thanks to his own brutal style. He brought unwanted heat on the mob with his charming way with the ladies which involved, when necessary, escorting the husband out of town at gunpoint and softening the lady of the moment with a pistol-whipping before moving in with her. One woman complained to local reporters. That was too much. Mob hitmen gunned down Vito Giannola in 1927. With him went the location of the secret burial site of those cash-packed lunch pails. Even the bodyguard who had escorted him on his trips to make his “deposits,” Alphonse Palizzola, had been gunned down two years before, probably on Vito’s orders. The mob retirement deposit is still supposed to be there somewhere around Horseshoe Lake.

Information

Horseshoe Lake State Park is located in Madison County along Highway 111, between Collinsville and Granite City.

Telephone number is (618) 931-0270.

The Web site is at dnr.state.il.us/lands/landmgt/PARKS/R4/HORSESP.HTM