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Thy Wondrous Story, Illinois
Marshall,
IL ,
USA
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Illinois State
Historical Marker
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The fertile prairies in Illinois attracted the attention of French trader Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette as they explored the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers in 1673. France claimed this region until she surrendered it to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris. During the American Revolution George Rogers Clark and his small army scored a bloodless victory when they captured Kaskaskia for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Illinois became a county of Virginia. This area was ceded to the United States in 1784, and became in turn a part of the Northwest Territory and the Indiana and Illinois Territories. On December 3, 1818, Illinois entered the Union as the twenty-first state. Seven years earlier the National Road began in the east and gradually pushed west as a major route for emigrants, freight wagons and stage coaches. Surveyors marked the route from this point to Vandalia in 1828 and construction in Illinois, limited by Congress to grading and bridging, began. The road was a track of dust or mud around ungrubbed trees and, as an English traveler found in 1842, deep holes in the center of the roadbed from which a settler had taken clay for his chimney. Early in the twentieth century the development of the automobile led to demands for better roads. The National Road became a part of the cross-country National Old Trails Road, now U.S. 40, and was marked by red, white and blue bands on wayside posts.
Last updated: 2/14/2015 15:17:00 |
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Related Themes: C.S.A., Confederate States of America, Confederacy, Union, American Revolution, the Revolutionary War.
See more historic sites related to Illinois in the Revolution.
View other Illinois Civil War Historical Markers
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