Lincoln Douglas Square commemorates the seventh and last debate held in 1858 between Abraham Lincoln and Senator Stephen A. Douglas Alton with a monument to this historic event.
Read moreThe Elijah P. Lovejoy Memorial
This monument honors abolitionist newspaperman Elijah Parish Lovejoy who was killed trying to after trying to put out a fire at the warehouse where he was guarding a printing press after three others had been thrown in the Mississippi River by pro-slavery supporters. . The memorial centers on a 93-foot high granite column topped by a 17-foot high winged statue of Victory.
Read moreConfederate Memorial
In April of 2002, a memorial containing the names of the of the Confederate prisoners who died of smallpox was dedicated while in the Alton Federal Prison during the Civil War. The memorial is located across the Mississippi River at the Lincoln Shields Recreation Area.
Read moreAlton Federal Prison Site
A State marker designates the remnants of a portion of a cellblock of the Alton Federal Prison as the site of the First Illinois Prison, built in 1831. During the Civil War, the prison reopened as a military detention camp because of overcrowding in the two St. Louis prisons that housed Confederate prisoners of war. A smallpox epidemic in December, 1862 killed as many as 2,200 prisoners.
Read moreConfederate Cemetery and Memorial
Approximately 300 prisoners and Union soldiers who died of smallpox were buried on a nearby island (once called Sunflower Island and currently under water) where a quarantine was set up. Those who were not buried on the island were interred in a special plot in North Alton, known today as the Confederate Soldiers' Cemetery.
Read more