Place:Illinois, United States


NameIllinois
Alt namesILsource: Webster's Geographical Dictionary (1988) p 1256
Ill
Illinois Territory
Ilinoissource: common misspelling
TypeState
Coordinates40°N 89°W
Located inUnited States     (1818 - )
Contained Places
County
Adams ( 1825 - )
Alexander ( 1819 - )
Bond ( 1817 - )
Boone ( 1837 - )
Brown ( 1839 - )
Bureau ( 1837 - )
Calhoun ( 1825 - )
Carroll ( 1839 - )
Cass ( 1837 - )
Champaign ( 1833 - )
Christian ( 1839 - )
Clark ( 1819 - )
Clay ( 1824 - )
Clinton ( 1824 - )
Coles ( 1839 - )
Cook ( 1831 - )
Crawford ( 1816 - )
Cumberland ( 1843 - )
DeKalb ( 1837 - )
DeWitt ( 1839 - )
Douglas ( 1859 - )
DuPage ( 1839 - )
Edgar ( 1823 - )
Edwards ( 1814 - )
Effingham ( 1831 - )
Fayette ( 14 Feb 1821 - )
Ford ( 1859 - )
Franklin ( 1818 - )
Fulton ( 1823 - )
Gallatin ( 1812 - )
Greene ( 1821 - )
Grundy ( 1841 - )
Hamilton ( 1821 - )
Hancock ( 1825 - )
Hardin ( 1839 - )
Henderson ( 1841 - )
Henry ( 1825 - )
Iroquois ( 1833 - )
Jackson ( 1816 - )
Jasper ( 1831 - )
Jefferson ( 1819 - )
Jersey ( 1839 - )
Jo Daviess ( 1827 - )
Johnson ( 1812 - )
Kane ( 1836 - )
Kankakee ( 1853 - )
Kendall ( 1841 - )
Knox ( 1825 - )
La Salle ( 1831 - )
Lake ( 1839 - )
Lawrence ( 1821 - )
Lee ( 1839 - )
Livingston ( 1837 - )
Logan ( 1839 - )
Macon ( 1829 - )
Macoupin ( 1829 - )
Madison ( 1812 - )
Marion ( 1823 - )
Marshall ( 1839 - )
Mason ( 1841 - )
Massac ( 1843 - )
McDonough ( 1826 - )
McHenry ( 1836 - )
McLean ( 1830 - )
Menard ( 1839 - )
Mercer ( 1825 - )
Monroe ( 1816 - )
Montgomery ( 1821 - )
Morgan ( 1823 - )
Moultrie ( 1843 - )
Ogle ( 1836 - )
Peoria ( 1825 - )
Perry ( 1827 - )
Piatt ( 1841 - )
Pike ( 1821 - )
Pope ( 1816 - )
Pulaski ( 1843 - )
Putnam ( 1825 - )
Randolph ( 1795 - )
Richland ( 1841 - )
Rock Island ( 1831 - )
Saline ( 1847 - )
Sangamon ( 1821 - )
Schuyler ( 1825 - )
Scott ( 1839 - )
Shelby ( 1827 - )
St. Clair ( 1790 - )
Stark ( 1839 - )
Stephenson ( 1837 - )
Tazewell ( 1827 - )
Union ( 1818 - )
Vermilion ( 1826 - )
Wabash ( 1824 - )
Warren ( 1825 - )
Washington ( 1818 - )
Wayne ( 1819 - )
White ( 1815 - )
Whiteside ( 1836 - )
Will ( 1836 - )
Williamson ( 1839 - )
Winnebago ( 1836 - )
Woodford ( 1841 - )
Military base
Camp Butler
Unknown
Buchanan
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Illinois is a state in the Midwestern United States. Chicago is its largest city, and the state's capital is Springfield; other major metropolitan areas include Metro East (of Greater St. Louis), Peoria and Rockford. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth largest population, and the 25th largest land area.

With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and immense farmland in the north and center, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a highly diverse economy. Owing to its central location and geography, the state is a major transportation hub: the Port of Chicago enjoys access to the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway, and to the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River via the Illinois Waterway. Additionally, the Mississippi, Ohio, and Wabash rivers form parts of the state's boundaries. Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has been among the world's ten busiest airports for decades. Described as a microcosm of the entire United States, Illinois has long been considered a bellwether in social, cultural, and political terms.[1]

What is now Illinois was inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous cultures, including the advanced civilization centered in the Cahokia region. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi River in the 17th century, in the region they called Illinois Country, part of the sprawling colony of New France. Following U.S. independence in 1783, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky via the Ohio River, and the population grew from south to north. Illinois was part of the United States' oldest territory, the Northwest Territory, and in 1818 it achieved statehood. The Erie Canal brought increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes, and the small settlement of Chicago became one of the fastest growing cities in the world, benefiting from its location as one of the few natural harbors in south-western Lake Michigan. The invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoian John Deere turned the state's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. In the mid 19th century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal and a sprawling railroad network greatly facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation.

By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities, and coal mining in the central and southern areas, attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. As one of America's most industrialized states, Illinois is a manufacturing center, which was especially important during both of the 20th century´s world wars. The Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in the state, particularly Chicago, who founded the city's famous jazz and blues cultures. Chicago, which became one of the country's leading cultural, economic, and population centers, is a global city; its metropolitan area of Chicagoland encompasses about 65% of the state's population.

Three U.S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama; additionally, Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was born and raised in the state. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official state slogan Land of Lincoln, which has been displayed on its license plates since 1954. The state is the site of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield and the future home of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.

Contents

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Geologic history

During the early part of the Paleozoic Era, the area that would one day become Illinois was submerged beneath a shallow sea and located near the Equator. Diverse marine life lived at this time, including trilobites, brachiopods, and crinoids. Changing environmental conditions led to the formation of large coal swamps in the Carboniferous.

Illinois was above sea level for at least part of the Mesozoic, but by its end was again submerged by the Western Interior Seaway. This receded by the Eocene Epoch.

During the Pleistocene Epoch, vast ice sheets covered much of Illinois, with only the Driftless Area remaining exposed. These glaciers carved the basin of Lake Michigan and left behind traces of ancient glacial lakes and moraines.

Pre-European

American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation. Cahokia, the largest regional chiefdom and Urban Center of the Pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, was located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. They built an urban complex of more than 100 platform and burial mounds, a plaza larger than 35 football fields, and a woodhenge of sacred cedar, all in a planned design expressing the culture's cosmology. Monks Mound, the center of the site, is the largest Pre-Columbian structure north of the Valley of Mexico. It is high, long, wide, and covers . It contains about of earth. It was topped by a structure thought to have measured about in length and in width, covered an area , and been as much as high, making its peak above the level of the plaza. The finely crafted ornaments and tools recovered by archaeologists at Cahokia include elaborate ceramics, finely sculptured stonework, carefully embossed and engraved copper and mica sheets, and one funeral blanket for an important chief fashioned from 20,000 shell beads. These artifacts indicate that Cahokia was truly an urban center, with clustered housing, markets, and specialists in toolmaking, hide dressing, potting, jewelry making, shell engraving, weaving and salt making.

The civilization vanished in the 15th century for unknown reasons, but historians and archeologists have speculated that the people depleted the area of resources. Many indigenous tribes engaged in constant warfare. According to Suzanne Austin Alchon, "At one site in the central Illinois River valley, one third of all adults died as a result of violent injuries." The next major power in the region was the Illinois Confederation or Illini, a political alliance. As the Illini declined during the Beaver Wars era, members of the Algonquian-speaking Potawatomi, Miami, Sauk, and other tribes including the Fox (Mesquakie), Ioway, Kickapoo, Mascouten, Piankashaw, Shawnee, Wea, and Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) came into the area from the east and north around the Great Lakes.[2]

European exploration and settlement prior to 1800

French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored the Illinois River in 1673. Marquette soon after founded a mission at the Grand Village of the Illinois in Illinois Country. In 1680, French explorers under René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Henri de Tonti constructed a fort at the site of present-day Peoria, and in 1682, a fort atop Starved Rock in today's Starved Rock State Park. French Empire Canadiens came south to settle particularly along the Mississippi River, and Illinois was part of first New France, and then of La Louisiane until 1763, when it passed to the British with their defeat of France in the Seven Years' War. The small French settlements continued, although many French migrated west to Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis, Missouri, to evade British rule.[3]

A few British soldiers were posted in Illinois, but few British or American settlers moved there, as the Crown made it part of the territory reserved for Indians west of the Appalachians, and then part of the British Province of Quebec. In 1778, George Rogers Clark claimed Illinois County for Virginia. In a compromise, Virginia (and other states that made various claims) ceded the area to the new United States in the 1780s and it became part of the Northwest Territory, administered by the federal government and later organized as states.

19th century

Prior to statehood

The Illinois-Wabash Company was an early claimant to much of Illinois. The Illinois Territory was created on February 3, 1809, with its capital at Kaskaskia, an early French settlement.

During the discussions leading up to Illinois's admission to the Union, the proposed northern boundary of the state was moved twice. The original provisions of the Northwest Ordinance had specified a boundary that would have been tangent to the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Such a boundary would have left Illinois with no shoreline on Lake Michigan at all. However, as Indiana had successfully been granted a northern extension of its boundary to provide it with a usable lakefront, the original bill for Illinois statehood, submitted to Congress on January 23, 1818, stipulated a northern border at the same latitude as Indiana's, which is defined as 10 miles north of the southernmost extremity of Lake Michigan. However, the Illinois delegate, Nathaniel Pope, wanted more, and lobbied to have the boundary moved further north. The final bill passed by Congress included an amendment to shift the border to 42° 30' north, which is approximately north of the Indiana northern border. This shift added to the state, including the lead mining region near Galena. More importantly, it added nearly 50 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and the Chicago River. Pope and others envisioned a canal that would connect the Chicago and Illinois rivers and thus connect the Great Lakes to the Mississippi.

The State of Illinois prior to the Civil War

In 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. The capital remained at Kaskaskia, headquartered in a small building rented by the state. In 1819, Vandalia became the capital, and over the next 18 years, three separate buildings were built to serve successively as the capitol building. In 1837, the state legislators representing Sangamon County, under the leadership of state representative Abraham Lincoln, succeeded in having the capital moved to Springfield, where a fifth capitol building was constructed. A sixth capitol building was erected in 1867, which continues to serve as the Illinois capitol today.

Though it was ostensibly a "free state", there was nonetheless slavery in Illinois. The ethnic French had owned black slaves since the 1720s, and American settlers had already brought slaves into the area from Kentucky. Slavery was nominally banned by the Northwest Ordinance, but that was not enforced for those already holding slaves. When Illinois became a sovereign state in 1818, the Ordinance no longer applied, and about 900 slaves were held in the state. As the southern part of the state, later known as "Egypt" or "Little Egypt", was largely settled by migrants from the South, the section was hostile to free blacks. Settlers were allowed to bring slaves with them for labor, but, in 1822, state residents voted against making slavery legal. Still, most residents opposed allowing free blacks as permanent residents. Some settlers brought in slaves seasonally or as house servants. The Illinois Constitution of 1848 was written with a provision for exclusionary laws to be passed. In 1853, John A. Logan helped pass a law to prohibit all African Americans, including freedmen, from settling in the state.

The winter of 1830–1831 is called the "Winter of the Deep Snow"; a sudden, deep snowfall blanketed the state, making travel impossible for the rest of the winter, and many travelers perished. Several severe winters followed, including the "Winter of the Sudden Freeze". On December 20, 1836, a fast-moving cold front passed through, freezing puddles in minutes and killing many travelers who could not reach shelter. The adverse weather resulted in crop failures in the northern part of the state. The southern part of the state shipped food north, and this may have contributed to its name: "Little Egypt", after the Biblical story of Joseph in Egypt supplying grain to his brothers.

In 1832, the Black Hawk War was fought in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin between the United States and the Sauk, Fox (Meskwaki), and Kickapoo Indian tribes. It represents the end of Indian resistance to white settlement in the Chicago region. The Indians had been forced to leave their homes and move to Iowa in 1831; when they attempted to return, they were attacked and eventually defeated by U.S. militia. The survivors were forced back to Iowa.

By 1839, the Latter Day Saints had founded a utopian city called Nauvoo. Located in Hancock County along the Mississippi River, Nauvoo flourished, and soon rivaled Chicago for the position of the state's largest city. But in 1844, the Latter Day Saint movement founder Joseph Smith was killed in the Carthage Jail, about 30 miles away from Nauvoo. Following a succession crisis (Latter Day Saints), Brigham Young led most Latter Day Saints out of Illinois in a mass exodus to present-day Utah; after close to six years of rapid development, Nauvoo rapidly declined afterward.

After it was established in 1833, Chicago gained prominence as a Great Lakes port, and then as an Illinois and Michigan Canal port after 1848, and as a rail hub soon afterward. By 1857, Chicago was Illinois's largest city.[3] With the tremendous growth of mines and factories in the state in the 19th century, Illinois was the ground for the formation of labor unions in the United States.

In 1847, after lobbying by Dorothea L. Dix, Illinois became one of the first states to establish a system of state-supported treatment of mental illness and disabilities, replacing local almshouses. Dix came into this effort after having met J. O. King, a Jacksonville, Illinois businessman, who invited her to Illinois, where he had been working to build an asylum for the insane. With the lobbying expertise of Dix, plans for the Jacksonville State Hospital (now known as the Jacksonville Developmental Center) were signed into law on March 1, 1847.

Civil War and after

During the American Civil War, Illinois ranked fourth in men who served (more than 250,000) in the Union Army, a figure surpassed by only New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Beginning with President Abraham Lincoln's first call for troops and continuing throughout the war, Illinois mustered 150 infantry regiments, which were numbered from the 7th to the 156th regiments. Seventeen cavalry regiments were also gathered, as well as two light artillery regiments. The town of Cairo, at the southern tip of the state at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, served as a strategically important supply base and training center for the Union army. For several months, both General Grant and Admiral Foote had headquarters in Cairo.

During the Civil War, and more so afterwards, Chicago's population skyrocketed, which increased its prominence. The Pullman Strike and Haymarket Riot, in particular, greatly influenced the development of the American labor movement. From Sunday, October 8, 1871, until Tuesday, October 10, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire burned in downtown Chicago, destroying .

20th century

At the turn of the 20th century, Illinois had a population of nearly 5 million. Many people from other parts of the country were attracted to the state by employment caused by the expanding industrial base. Whites were 98% of the state's population. Bolstered by continued immigration from southern and eastern Europe, and by the African-American Great Migration from the South, Illinois grew and emerged as one of the most important states in the union. By the end of the century, the population had reached 12.4 million.

The Century of Progress World's fair was held at Chicago in 1933. Oil strikes in Marion County and Crawford County led to a boom in 1937, and by 1939, Illinois ranked fourth in U.S. oil production. Illinois manufactured 6.1 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking seventh among the 48 states. Chicago became an ocean port with the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959. The seaway and the Illinois Waterway connected Chicago to both the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1960, Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines (which still exists as a museum, with a working McDonald's across the street).

Illinois had a prominent role in the emergence of the nuclear age. In 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, the University of Chicago conducted the first sustained nuclear chain reaction. In 1957, Argonne National Laboratory, near Chicago, activated the first experimental nuclear power generating system in the United States. By 1960, the first privately financed nuclear plant in the United States, Dresden 1, was dedicated near Morris. In 1967, Fermilab, a national nuclear research facility near Batavia, opened a particle accelerator, which was the world's largest for over 40 years. With eleven plants currently operating, Illinois leads all states in the amount of electricity generated from nuclear power.

In 1961, Illinois became the first state in the nation to adopt the recommendation of the American Law Institute and pass a comprehensive criminal code revision that repealed the law against sodomy. The code also abrogated common law crimes and established an age of consent of 18. The state's fourth constitution was adopted in 1970, replacing the 1870 document.

The first Farm Aid concert was held in Champaign to benefit American farmers, in 1985. The worst upper Mississippi River flood of the century, the Great Flood of 1993, inundated many towns and thousands of acres of farmland.[3]

21st century

On August 28, 2017, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed a bill into law that prohibited state and local police from arresting anyone solely due to their immigration status or due to federal detainers. Some fellow Republicans criticized Rauner for his action, claiming the bill made Illinois a sanctuary state.

Timeline

YearEventSource
1778George Rogers Clark claims Illinois country for commonwealth of VirginiaSource:Wikipedia
1783Illinois ceded to the US and becomes part of Northwest TerritorySource:Wikipedia
1800Illinois First censusSource:Population of States and Counties of the United
1818Illinois becomes 21st stateSource:Wikipedia
1832Black Hawk WarSource:Wikipedia
1857Chicago becomes largest citySource:Wikipedia

Population History

source: Source:Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790-1990
Census Year Population
1800 2,458
1810 12,282
1820 55,211
1830 157,445
1840 476,183
1850 851,470
1860 1,711,951
1870 2,539,891
1880 3,077,871
1890 3,826,352
1900 4,821,550
1910 5,638,591
1920 6,485,280
1930 7,630,654
1940 7,897,241
1950 8,712,176
1960 10,081,158
1970 11,113,976
1980 11,426,518
1990 11,430,602

Note: Illinois was included in the Northwest Territory established in 1787 and then in Indiana Territory (1800). Illinois Territory was established in 1809, and included virtually all of present-day Wisconsin and portions of Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Illinois was admitted as a State on December 3, 1818 with essentially its present boundaries. In 1790 the Northwest Territory had no census coverage. The population shown for 1800 is the total of two counties and one community in present-day Illinois, at that time part of Indiana Territory. Knox County, Indiana Territory, also included some population in what is now Illinois. In 1810, the returns for the two counties of Illinois Territory included some settlements in present-day Wisconsin. The northern part of the State was not fully covered by the census until 1830.. Total for 1800 comprises the populations reported for Randolph and St. Clair Counties, Indiana Territory, plus the population (100) of Opee (Peoria), included with St. Clair County. Total for 1890 includes 1 Indian in prison, not reported by county.

County maps

Research Tips

Births, Marriages, and Deaths

Ancestry.com has the following collections of Illinois vital records:

FamilySearch.org has a variety of Illinois collections available for free online:

Chicago (Cook County) records are also available at FamilySearch.org:

Research Guides

Outstanding guide to Illinois family history and genealogy (FamilySearch Research Wiki). Birth, marriage, and death records, wills, deeds, county records, archives, Bible records, cemeteries, churches, censuses, directories, immigration lists, naturalizations, maps, history, newspapers, and societies.

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Illinois. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.