Arts, Recreation, and Conservation

Elgin is home to the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, "Illinois' second orchestra," according to Chicago Tribune music critic John Von Rhein. Other classical music groups include the Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestra—the only youth symphony ever invited to Ravinia, the Elgin Choral Union, the Elgin Children's Chorus, and Elgin Opera Outdoor music can be heard at the Wing Park Bandshell. Theatre groups include the Janus Theatre Company, Elgin Theatre Company, Children's Theatre of Elgin, and Fox Valley Youth Theatre. Together, the Hemmens Auditorium and Elgin Community College's Visual & Performing Arts Center host dozens of performances a year by performers ranging from Chicago's Hubbard Street Dance Company to comedian Bill Maher.

After losing many landmark businesses in the 1980s, downtown Elgin experienced a renaissance in the 1990s with the arrival of the Grand Victoria riverboat casino and improvement in the local economy. Many historic buildings have been transformed into stylish clubs and restaurants.

Elgin's city parks include 112 acre (453,000 m²) Lords Park, which features the Elgin Public Museum, a petting zoo, and a herd of American bison, and 121 acre (490,000 m²) Wing Park, which includes a golf course. Other golf courses within Elgin include the Rolling Knolls Country Club, the Highlands of Elgin, and the Elgin Country Club. The Centre of Elgin, which among other features includes an aquatic park and a climbing wall, remains one of the largest municipal recreation centers in the United States. The Elgin Sports Complex on the City's Southwest side offers ten lighted ballfields, ten soccer fields and the Chicago area's premier BMX Track, The Hill. The Complex hosts several local, regional and national tournaments every year. Elgin connects to Algonquin and Dundee to the north, and St. Charles, Geneva, and Batavia to the south by the Fox River Trail bike path.

Although one of the largest and fastest-growing cities in Illinois, Elgin still retains some of the natural beauty and habitat diversity that first brought settlers to this area. On the East, the city borders the 4,200 acre (17 km²) Poplar Creek Preserve, maintained by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, which includes bike trails, hiking trails and equestrian trails. The Shoe Factory Road Prairie located in the preserve provides an example of the hill prairies that once dotted the region. Poplar Creek Preserves connects to the 4,000 acre (16 km²) Spring Creek Valley Forest Preserve via a conservation easement covering parts of the Sears campus.

Elgin boasts two highly protected Illinois Nature Preserves, the Bluff Spring Fen and Trout Park. For its size, Bluff Spring Fen has a remarkable number of distinct plant communities, including a hill prairie and a fen, or alkaline spring marshland, which is home to several rare orchids. Trout Park also includes a similar calcerous seep community, with the addition of a unique forest community of oaks, ashes, maples, and uncommon species such as arborvitae and witch hazel. When the park was created in the 1920's, the local newspaper ran a lengthy front-page story with lists of the plant species of Trout Park, reflecting both the great variety of plants present and interest Elginites had in conservation. In the 1960s, the Northwest Tollway bisected the site and reduced it in size.