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The story
History
Pre-European
American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of what is now Illinois 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 50-acre (20 ha) 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 100 ft (30 m) high, 951 ft (290 m) long, 836 ft (255 m) wide, and covers 13.8 acres (5.6 ha). It contains about 814,000 cu yd (622,000 m3) of earth. It was topped by a structure thought to have measured about 105 ft (32 m) in length and 48 ft (15 m) in width, covered an area 5,000 sq ft (460 m2), and been as much as 50 ft (15 m) high, making its peak 150 ft (46 m) above the level of the plaza. Archaeological recoveries from Cahokia—including elaborate ceramics, sculpted stonework, engraved copper and mica sheets, and a 20,000-shell-bead burial blanket—demonstrate that the site was an advanced urban center supporting residential clusters, markets, and diverse craft specialization.
The civilization collapsed in the 15th century due to undetermined causes, although theories suggest resource depletion and chronic intertribal warfare. Historian Suzanne Austin Alchon highlights that violent trauma accounted for one-third of adult deaths at a central Illinois River valley site. The next major power in the region was the Illinois Confederation or Illini, a political alliance. Around the time of European contact in 1673, the Illinois confederation had an estimated population of over 10,000 people. As the Illini declined during the Beaver Wars era, members of the Algonquian-speaking Potawatomi, Miami, Sauk, and other tribes including the Meskwaki, Iowa, Kickapoo, Mascouten, Piankeshaw, Shawnee, Wea, and Ho-Chunk came into the area from the east and north around the Great Lakes.
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.
British forces garrisoned a few isolated posts in Illinois; however, the region saw virtually no British or American colonization. This lack of settlement was a direct consequence of imperial decrees, which first designated the territory as indigenous lands west of the Appalachians and subsequently absorbed it into the 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.
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 10 mi (16 km) 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 51 mi (82 km) north of the Indiana northern border. This shift added 8,500 sq mi (22,000 km2) 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.
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. French colonists introduced enslavement to the Illinois region in the 1720s, a practice expanded by American settlers migrating from Kentucky. Although the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 nominally banned slavery, the prohibition was not enforced against pre-existing slaveholders. Consequently, when Illinois achieved statehood in 1818 and transitioned out of the Ordinance's jurisdiction, approximately 900 people remained enslaved within 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. Edward Coles, the second Governor of Illinois who was born in Virginia, participated in a campaign to block extending existing slavery in Illinois after winning the 1822 Illinois gubernatorial election. In 1824, state residents voted against making slavery legal by a vote of 6640 against to 4972 for.
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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 a coalition of the Sauk, Meskwaki, and Kickapoo peoples, who had been forced to leave their homes and relocate to Iowa in 1831. The tribes had lost their territory east of the Mississippi river in Illinois under a disputed treaty in 1804. The natives, under Sauk chief Black Hawk, attempted to return to Illinois in April 1832 to reclaim this land. They were attacked and defeated by the U.S. Militia and rival tribes allied with the US forces, including the Potawatomi, Dakota, Menominee, and Ho-Chunk. The survivors of Black Hawk's band were forced back to Iowa. This represented the end of native resistance to white settlement in the Chicago and Northern Illinois regions. By 1832, when the last native lands in Illinois were ceded to the United States, the indigenous population of the state had been reduced by infectious diseases, warfare, and forced westward removal to only one village with fewer than 300 inhabitants.
By 1839, the Latter Day Saints had founded a utopian city called Nauvoo, formerly called Commerce. Located in Hancock County along the Mississippi River, Nauvoo flourished and, by 1844, briefly surpassed Chicago for the position of the state's largest city. But in that same year, the Latter Day Saint movement founder, Joseph Smith, was killed in the Carthage Jail, about 30 miles away from Nauvoo. Following a succession crisis, 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 quickly 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. 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 soldiers 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, killing 300 people and destroying four sq mi (10 km2).
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 was demolished in 1984. In 1985 a replica was built on the same site to recreate how the original one looked. Though this replica was demolished in 2017, due to repeated flooding of the building.
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.
21st century
Illinois entered the 21st century under Republican Governor George Ryan. Near the end of his term in January 2003, following a string of high-profile exonerations, Ryan commuted all death sentences in the state.
The 2002 election brought Democrat Rod Blagojevich to the governor's mansion. It also brought future president Barack Obama into a committee leadership position in the Illinois Senate, where he drafted the Health Care Justice Act, a forerunner of the Affordable Care Act. Obama's election to the presidency in Blagojevich's second term set off a chain of events culminating in Blagojevich's impeachment, trial, and subsequent criminal conviction and imprisonment, making Blagojevich the second consecutive Illinois governor to be convicted on federal corruption charges.
Blagojevich's replacement Pat Quinn was defeated by Republican Bruce Rauner in the 2014 election. Disagreements between the governor and legislature over budgetary policy led to the Illinois Budget Impasse, a 793-day period stretching from 2015 to 2018 in which the state had no budget and struggled to pay its bills.
On August 28, 2017, 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.
In the 2018 election, Rauner was replaced by J. B. Pritzker, returning the state government to a Democratic trifecta. In January 2020, the state legalized marijuana. On March 9, 2020, Pritzker issued a disaster proclamation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He ended the state of emergency in May 2023.
2024 American Community Survey
According to 2024 U.S. Census Bureau estimates (with Hispanics allocated amongst the various racial groups), Illinois' population was 60.2% White, 13.2% Black or African American, 0.8% Native American or Alaskan Native, 6.4% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 8.7% Some Other Race, and 10.7% from two or more races. The white population continues to remain the largest racial category in Illinois. Under this methodology, Hispanics are allocated amongst the various racial groups and primarily identify as Some Other Race (43.0%) or Multiracial (35.6%) with the remainder identifying as White (16.0%), Black (1.5%), American Indian and Alaskan Native (3.7%), Asian (0.3%), and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (0.1%). By ethnicity, 19.4% of the total population is Hispanic-Latino (of any race) and 80.6% is Non-Hispanic (of any race). Illinois has the largest share of Hispanic residents in the Midwest, with over 37% of Hispanics in the region living in Illinois.
Recreation
The Illinois state parks system began in 1908 with what is now Fort Massac State Park, becoming the first park in a system encompassing more than 60 parks and about the same number of recreational and wildlife areas.
Areas under the protection of the National Park Service include: the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor near Lockport, the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail, the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, the American Discovery Trail, the Pullman National Monument, and New Philadelphia Town Site. The federal government also manages the Shawnee National Forest and the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.
History of corruption
Politics in the state have been infamous for highly visible corruption cases, as well as for crusading reformers, such as governors Adlai Stevenson and James R. Thompson. In 2006, former governor George Ryan was convicted of racketeering and bribery, leading to a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence. On December 7, 2011, former governor Rod Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison for allegations that he conspired to sell the vacated Senate seat left by President Barack Obama to the highest bidder. Blagojevich had earlier been impeached and convicted by the legislature, resulting in his removal from office. In the late 20th century, Congressman Dan Rostenkowski was imprisoned for mail fraud; former governor and federal judge Otto Kerner Jr. was imprisoned for bribery; Secretary of State Paul Powell was investigated and found to have gained great wealth through bribes, and State Auditor of Public Accounts (Comptroller) Orville Hodge was imprisoned for embezzlement. In 1912, William Lorimer, the GOP boss of Chicago, was expelled from the U.S. Senate for bribery, and in 1921, Governor Len Small was found to have defrauded the state of a million dollars. Michael Madigan, Illinois' House Speaker for all but two years from 1983 to 2021, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2025. Having served as chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois concurrent with his speakership since 1997, Madigan was arguably the most powerful politician in Illinois.
From Wikipedia’s article on Illinois, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5