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Visitors
Guide to
The region along the Mississippi River south of St. Louis is French Colonial Country. The region was originally inhabited by a number of Native American cultures as far back as 11,000 B.C. and remnants of these cultures can be found at Mastodon State Historic Site and Washington State Park in Jefferson County, Missouri. The area was claimed by France after an expedition led by Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette in 1673. Into what became known as Illinois Country came traders and settlers from France and Canada who were attracted by the resources of the region. The town of Cahokia was founded in 1699 by French-Canadian missionaries, the same year as the founding of Williamsburg, the colonial capitol of Virginia, and predating New Orleans by nearly 20 years and St. Louis by 65 years. The village of Kaskaskia was established by French traders and their Native American wives in 1703 and in 1718 a contingent of soldiers, officials and workmen from New Orleans were sent north to establish a civil government in the region. A wooden fort, later to be rebuilt in stone, named Fort de Chartres, was soon constructed eighteen miles north of Kaskaskia from which the civil authority would operate and whose military presence it was hoped would pacify the Fox Tribe. By 1735 Ste. Genevieve was established, becoming the first permanent European settlement in what now is the state of Missouri. The town started as a trading outpost and was later settled by lead miners, farmers and fur traders. The American Bottoms, a sixty mile long strip of land on the Illinois' bank of the Mississippi River and the le Grand Champs of Ste. Genevieve became the breadbasket of the Louisiana Territory providing foodstuffs to European colonists as far south as Louisiana. Although the Illinois Country flourished, France's colonial empire didn’t and France ceded the region to Great Britain when it signed the Treaty of Paris that ended the French & Indian War in 1763. Many of the French settlers on the east bank of the Mississippi River, preferring to live under Spanish rather under the British, crossed the river to live in St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve.
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During
the American Revolution a daring raid by George Rogers Clark and his "Long
Knives" captured Kaskaskia and Fort Gage on July 4, 1778, and proclaimed the
area to be part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The French citizens,
fearing retribution from the Americans, were overjoyed when they found
common allies against the British and rang the church bell in celebration
giving rise to the bell's reputation as " The
Liberty Bell of the West" (photo left.) Meriwether Lewis and William
Clark recruited men from the American garrison at Kaskaskia and used Cahokia
as an administrative center as they prepared for their
journey of exploration. Kaskaskia was the seat of territorial government from 1810 to 1818 when it
became the state capitol when Illinois became a state. In 1820 the capitol
was moved to Vandalia and the importance of Kaskaskia diminished. The town
was devastated by the floodwaters of the Mississippi in 1881 and another
flood in 1893 obliterated the original town. Residents moved what they had
left to the town's present site. This small community is the only Illinois
community west of the Mississippi River .
greatriverroad.com
invites you to explore this exciting and interesting region. Although
English is the common language spoken in the region today, the French
heritage is not forgotten. Ste. Genevieve has more than 150 pre-1825 structures
and many are open to the public giving it the
largest concentration of French Colonial architecture in the North America and its
Historic District has been designated a National Landmark. Across the
Mississippi River in Randolph County, the State of Illinois operates several historic sites.
The Pierre Menard Home is the finest example of upper class French Colonial
life in the region, Fort Kaskaskia preserves the site that George Rogers Clark captured
during the Revolutionary War, and the restored Fort de Chartres 
