Take your own mind-blowing tour at NGS in May: Cahokia Mounds

A thousand years ago in downstate Illinois, across the Mississippi from where St. Louis is now, a world-class engineer designed a 100-foot-tall structure that still stands. He made it out of mud.

I think it's the most amazing destination in the Midwest. I wrote about it 15 years ago.

The latest visitor information is here.







Harold Henderson, "The Rise and Fall of the Mound People," Chicago Reader, 29 June 2000.

Photo per Creative Commons (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/emilyrides/3915222657

St. Clair County, Illinois, Harvest

Southwestern Illinois' hub, St. Clair County, has a number of relevant books available on line through Illinois Harvest:

Prairie Farmer's Reliable Directory of Farmers and Breeders of St. Clair and Monroe Counties, Illinois. Evansville, IN: Unigraphic, 1978. 323 pages. This is a republication of the 1919 edition, published by Prairie Farmer, and it promises unique genealogical (or microhistorical) data: it includes a tractor owners' directory including the make of each tractor.

The Birthplace of the Midwest, Cahokia, Illinois. [250th anniversary celebration souvenir program.] N.p.: The Association, 1949. 28 pages.

Nebelsick, Alvin Louis. A History of Belleville. Belleville: Township High School and Junior College, 1951? 272 pages.

O'Fallon Centennial Celebration, 1854-1954. O'Fallon: n.p., 1954. 89 pages.

Reflections of the Belleville, Illinois, Sesquicentennial, 1814-1964. Belleville: Belleville Sesquicentennial Commission, 1964. 32 pages.