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About the Hotel
Starved Rock Lodge is Illinois's most beloved historic state park lodge — a 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps masterpiece of log and stone construction embedded in Starved Rock State Park, where the Illinois River has cut 18 canyon systems through Utica sandstone over thousands of years. The canyons range from intimate slot canyons navigable only by single-file hikers to broad Cathedral Canyon, whose vertical sandstone walls rise 50 feet above a year-round stream. In winter, the canyon waterfalls freeze solid, creating one of Illinois's most otherworldly landscapes. The lodge's spa includes Finnish sauna, steam, and hydrotherapy; the sauna after a canyon hike in February, when the frozen falls are at their most spectacular, is quintessentially Illinois wilderness wellness. The lodge itself — with its great fireplace hall, hand-forged iron fixtures, and WPA-era murals — is one of the finest examples of New Deal public architecture in the Midwest.
