Southernmost Illinois History

of Alexander, Pulaski, Union, Johnson, Massac and nearby counties

Please see our new and improved site: southernmostillinoishistory.info

Southernmost Illinois is where Illinois' European era history began. The Land Between the nation's two largest Rivers - Massac, Pulaski, Johnson, Pope, Alexander and Union counties - was prominent in the earliest activities. Many do not realize its nationally significant history.

The crescent shaped section of the Ohio River between Metropolis and Cairo was one of the busiest "interstate highways" of the 1700s and 1800s, carrying settlers and their belongings westward and farm products to market.

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Rivers' confluence - Ohio River at right flows in to Mississippi River.  Kentucky at right, Missouri on lower left, Cairo, Illinois at top.

Southernmost Illinois is south of Route 13. It's landform is (mostly) gentle hills, with some interesting bluffs to climb, where the southernmost glacier stopped, and a finger of the Gulf of Mexico once touched. It is included in an effort to create Land Between the Rivers National Heritage Area. - more.

B.C. - Tropical rain forest climate, a mile-high glacier, continents pulling apart, dinosaurs, earthquakes, rerouting of large rivers

Mississippian era - (900-1550 A.D.) - A large manufacturing and export business. The moundbuilders' odd communities were here.

Explorers - (1550-1850)

• Marquette and Joliet find a strange rock.
• Valley Forge in the East, Fort Massac in the West.
• A sad march of native Americans.
• The big military post (near Grand Chain?) housed half the US Military. The West was almost lost, there, and why you never heard of it.
• Fine clothing from Paris. But Paris was planning to import the finest leather from ...here?
• French, Spanish, British, Virginian, then American
• Lewis and Clark begin daily notes at Cairo.
• A new US capital... where?
• An underground railroad; Dred Scott is a passenger.

East of Grand Chain, near the top of the Ohio River crescent, was Cantonment Wilkinsonville, established by General Wilkinson who was involved in the Aaron Burr Conspiracy. An encampment and not a fort, in 1801-02, Cantonment Wilkinsonville was the largest military post in the United States, with nearly half the U.S. Army stationed there until ordered closed by President Jefferson.

Along the crescent, somewhere between Mound City and the Post Creek Cut-off, 100 years earlier, when buffalo were at home on Southernmost Illinois ranges, a buffalo hide tanning operation operated with the blessing of the King of France. Legends persist about local tribes sounding discouraging words and taking action. Other documents indicate that disease made the operation short-lived.

Civil War Era (1850-1900)

• A short, fiery orator and a tall pensive man debate in Jonesboro about a nation divided.
• Cairo and Mound City are staging areas for Union troops.
• Mound City shipyards builds, fits, repairs many war boats.
• The first US Navy nurses are at Mound City, helping a hospital and hospital ship. A National cemetery buries Confederate as well as Union soldiers.
• General Grant leads troops at Cairo.

20th century+ (1900s - forward)

• Buying grain in Egypt
• Superheroes
• The big flood of '37
• Coal and cat litter for the nation
• The big flood of '93
• A million visitors a year to Fort Massac

Researchers of Southernmost Illinois History can find help at Southern Illinois University's Morris Library Special Collections and the Cairo Public Library.

A very detailed, attractive map of the area from Rt. 13 south, river-to-river, is available for a few dollars from Shawnee National Forest offices. 
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