Coopers Island - Mouth of Pekin Lake

When settlers first came to Pekin in the mid-1820s, a Native American village of Pottawatomi was situated above Pekin Lake along Gravel Ridge (north of the John T. McNaughton Bridge). Now the home of the Pekin Boat Club, Cooper's Island formerly was called Carey's Island after Pekin ferryman Charles Carey. The island was once the property of the Boley Ice Company, whose ice houses once lined the shores of Pekin Lake in the days of the lucrative ice harvesting industry.