ILLINOIS 



2927 



ILLINOIS 



County, with its great city of Chicago, consti- 

 tutes one judicial district and has its own 

 special municipal courts. 



For special suffrage provisions, see subhead 

 History. 



History. French Period. Marquette, so far 

 as is known, was the first white man to visit 

 the territory comprising the present Illinois. 

 In 1673 he made his way up the Illinois River 

 with his canoes, and six years later La Salle 

 further explored the same river, building near 

 the present site of Peoria Fort Crevecoeur 

 (Broken Heart). Fort Saint Louis was erected 

 on Starved Rock, that natural vantage point 

 above the river, in 1682, but not until 1700 

 was the first town in Illinois really founded. 

 This was Kaskaskia. The Illinois Indians, for 

 whom the state was named, were friendly, and 

 the missions established among them met with 

 considerable success. The 'whole section, which 

 soon had many trading posts, was put under a 

 French military commandant and made part 

 of the territory of Louisiana. 



Early National Period. The victories which 

 in 1763 gave to the English Canada, also 

 brought into their possession this territory, but 

 little change was made, though the English 

 did not understand as well as the French the 

 method of dealing with the Indians Even 

 this frontier region was the scene of conflicts 

 during the Revolutionary War, for in 1779 

 George Rogers Clark, in a series of engage- 

 ments peculiarly thrilling, took Kaskaskia, and 

 made the territory part of the new nation (see 

 CLARK, GEORGE ROGERS). In 1787 it became a 

 part of the Northwest Territory (which see), 

 and in 1809 was organized as a separate terri- 

 tory, with its capital at Kaskaskia. Through- 

 out all these early years there were constant 

 troubles with the Indians, no longer friendly, 

 and in 1812 occurred the famous massacre at 

 Fort Dearborn (which see), on the site of Chi- 

 cago. Before this date the titles to most of 

 the land had been taken from the Indians, but 

 it was not until two decades later that the 

 Indians finally left the territory. On. December 

 3, 1818, Illinois, with a population of about 

 50,000, was admitted to the Union as the 

 twenty-first state. 



Growth Toward Prosperity. For a time the 

 Indian troubles continued and settlement in 

 the north could not go forward, but after the 

 Black Hawk War in 1832 (which see), the Sacs 

 and Foxes removed across the Mississippi, and 

 Illinois was free to develop more rapidly. 

 Immigrants from the East and South flocked 



to the state, the latter with the determination 

 to make of it slave territory, despite the direct 

 prohibition of the Ordinance of 1787 (which 

 see), and not until the time of the War of 

 Secession did the bitter struggle between the 

 slavery and anti-slavery parties really die out. 

 Meanwhile economic development went on 

 rapidly, railroads were built, the Illinois and 

 Michigan Canal was begun in 1834, and great 

 grain crops were harvested and sent out of 

 the state over its numerous waterways. 



A sharp clash took place soon after 1840 

 with the Mormons, who had settled at Nauvoo 

 and acquired considerable political power. 

 This culminated in the assassination of Joseph 

 Smith, the founder and leader, in 1844, and in 

 the next year the Mormons set out on their 

 remarkable overland trip to Utah (see MOR- 

 MONS). 



In the years before the War of Secession 

 Illinois attracted national attention chiefly be- 

 cause of the famous Lincoln-Douglas contest 

 for the Senate, and during the War it furnished 

 its full supply of troops 260,000 men in all. 



Last Half-Century. The remarkable thing 

 about Illinois in the decades following the War 

 of Secession was its industrial development. 

 Railroads multiplied so that their mileage was 

 greater than that of any other state; mining 

 advanced by rapid strides; grain was produced 

 in ever-increasing quantities, and the "mush- 

 room" city of Chicago acquired permanence as 

 the largest grain and live-stock market of the 

 country. Outstanding events in those years 

 largely concerned Chicago; there was the great 

 fire of 1871; the labor troubles of 1885 and 

 1886 which resulted in the anarchist riot in 

 Haymarket Square; the World's Columbian 

 Exposition of 1893; and the railway strike of 

 1894, which had its center at Pullman, just 

 outside of Chicago, and was quelled only by 

 the action of the Federal troops. 



In politics Illinois had shown itself con- 

 sistently Democratic in national politics up to 

 the time of the War of Secession, but since 

 that date it has been Republican except in 

 1892, when it cast its vote for Cleveland, and 

 in 1912, when Wilson was its choice. Politi- 

 cally, Illinois has attracted considerable un- 

 favorable attention in recent years, especially 

 in connection with the election in May, 1909, 

 of William Lorimer to a seat in the United 

 States Senate. Almost immediately the meth- 

 od of his election was questioned, and charges 

 of bribery were brought, but one investi- 

 gating committee after another brought ro 



