USA Illinois - The History : USA  

USA Illinois - The History - Travel guide

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USA Illinois - The History

The History

Prior to 1640, the state of Illinois including both sides of the Mississippi River from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin to the mouth of the Ohio, and then south along the west bank to the Arkansas River. The dominant tribe in the region before 1655, their hunting territory extended into western Kentucky and across Missouri and Iowa, the latter provoking occasional skirmishes with the Pawnee and Wichita on the plains.

Father Jacques Marquette, French-born missionary of the Jesuit order, and Louis Jolliet, Canadian explorer and mapmaker, were the first Europeans to view the land on which the City of Chicago was to stand in 1673.

More French explorers followed, building military outposts and establishing a fur trading empire with local Indians. In 1673, at the close of the French and Indian War, the Treaty of Paris ceded to England all lands France had claimed east of the Mississippi River, except for New Orleans in Louisiana. The British continued to control what is now Illinois until 1778 when George Rogers Clark, a Revolutionary War hero, and his band of American colonists captured Fort Kaskaskia. The Illinois country became a possession of Virginia until 1787 when it joined the Northwest Territory under the government of the United States.

Kaskaskia became Illinois’ first capitol in 1818. Two years later the seat of Illinois government was moved to Vandalia. In 1839, largely through the efforts of a young legislator named Abraham Lincoln, the capitol was again moved, this time to Springfield, where it is now open to the public as an historic site.

In 1871 a fire started in the cow barn at the rear of the Patrick O'Leary cottage at 137 DeKoven Street on Chicago's West Side. 300 Chicagoans were dead, 90,000 homeless, and the property loss was $200 million. Chicago quickly rebuilt and by 1875 little evidence of the disaster remained.