The 9 Best Waterfalls in Illinois
Nine, not ten, and here's the honest arithmetic. Illinois waterfall country splits into two worlds — the sandstone canyons of Starved Rock and Matthiessen in the north, and Shawnee National Forest's wilderness ledges in the south — and in 2026 the north is partly offline: Starved Rock's $18 million trail overhaul has Tonti Canyon (closed a decade already) and Owl Canyon shut, and a July flood closed Matthiessen's Lake Falls and Giant's Bathtub until further notice. We rank only what you can legally stand in front of today.
Three more database entries didn't survive research at all: Bailey Falls is a vanished settlement's name, not a confirmed waterfall; Homan Falls appears to be a subdivision street promoted to a natural feature by a data error; and the Great Falls of the Illinois River drops three feet over two miles — a rapids, not a falls. Each keeps an honest page saying exactly that.
What's left is genuinely good: the tallest single drop in the state on a youth camp that welcomes hikers three seasons a year, a falls you can walk behind, a spring-fed canyon that never quits, and wilderness ledges where the approach road doubles as a creek. Almost everything here is rain-powered — the season is spring, the window is 48 hours after a storm, and August is for planning, not visiting.
The tallest drop at Starved Rock in the park's deepest canyon — 65 to 90 feet depending on who measured — and one of three sanctioned ice-climbing walls in winter.
Directions, season & rules for Wildcat Canyon Falls →
The park's only spring-fed falls, still pouring when every runoff canyon has gone dry. A sandstone amphitheater with the classic Starved Rock photograph at the back.
Directions, season & rules for Saint Louis Canyon Falls →Reportedly the tallest single drop in Illinois — 55 feet on a youth camp that welcomes hikers September to mid-May. Sign the waiver, drop a few dollars, leave the dog home.
Directions, season & rules for Cedar Falls →
LaSalle Canyon's walk-behind falls — the only 360-degree waterfall in the park, a frozen column you can circle in winter. Our database calls it Chicago Falls; nobody else does.
Directions, season & rules for Chicago Falls →
Southern Illinois' flagship: a ledge-and-cascade system in a 3,775-acre wilderness where the access road becomes a creek in exactly the weather that makes the falls worth seeing.
Directions, season & rules for Burden Falls →Falls plus one of the state's biggest natural arches on one 4.6-mile Ferne Clyffe loop — the best two-for-one hike in southern Illinois.
Directions, season & rules for Happy Hollow Falls →Bjork's Falls to the map, Borks to the database, mislocated 'near Pomona' by half the internet — actually Ferne Clyffe's back boundary, past a ford-your-car creek crossing, usually empty.
Directions, season & rules for Borks Waterfall →A 50-foot spring off a Mississippi River bluff with a quarry at its feet — private land, public viewpoint. The best five-minute waterfall detour off an interstate in Illinois.
Directions, season & rules for Falling Springs Falls →
Starved Rock's east-end afterthought: dry in dry weather, great in wet weather, undocumented in both. A storm-day bonus for completists.
Directions, season & rules for Horseshoe Falls →Rankings reflect our research, not a verdict on your trip — every spot page takes community ratings and conditions reports, and that's where the real answer to "is it worth it?" lives.