Illinois History Timeline

Illinois Historical Timeline: 17th century 1673 -French explorers Jacques Marquette (1637-1675) and Louis Jolliet (1645-1700) descend the Mississippi to the Arkansas River and return to Wisconsin via the Illinois River—the first Europeans to reach the Illinois country. 1675 - Marquette founds a mission at the Great Village of the Illinois, near present Utica. 1680 o French traders René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643-1687) and Henry de Tonty (1650-1704) build Fort Crèvecoeur on the Illinois River, near present Peoria. o Iroquois Indians destroy the Great Village of the Illinois. 1682 - La Salle and Tonty build Fort St. Louis across the Illinois River from the Great Village of the Illinois site. 1696 - Jesuit priest Pierre François Pinet (1660-1704?) establishes the Guardian Angel mission at present Chicago. 1699 - Priests of the Quebec Seminary of Foreign Missions found the Holy Family mission at Cahokia, the first permanent settlement in the Illinois country. 18th century 1703 - Jesuit priest Gabriel Marest (1662-1714) moves the Immaculate Conception mission from present St. Louis to Kaskaskia. 1717 - Illinois becomes part of the French colony of Louisiana. 1718 - John Law (1671-1729) is granted a French charter for colonizing the Mississippi Valley; his "Mississippi Bubble" scheme bursts in 1720. 1720 - Fort de Chartres in Randolph County becomes the seat of military and civilian government in Illinois. 1730 - In a major battle, hostile Fox Indians are massacred in east-central Illinois by French troops and Indian allies. 1763 - French and Indian (Seven Years') War ends; Illinois country is ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Paris. 1769 - According to legend, northern tribes besiege and starve Illinois Indians tribes at Fort St. Louis, now known as Starved Rock. 1778 - George Rogers Clark (1752-1818) defeats the British at Kaskaskia, securing the Illinois country for Virginia. 1779 - Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (1745?-1818) establishes a trading post at present Chicago. 1783 - Treaty of Paris extends the United States boundary to include the Illinois country. 1784 - Virginia relinquishes its claim to Illinois. 1787 - Northwest Ordinance places Illinois in the Northwest Territory. 1788 - Arthur St. Clair (1734-1818) becomes the first governor of the Northwest Territory. 19th century 1800 - Congress creates the Indiana Territory, which includes Illinois. 1803 o Kaskaskia Indians cede nearly all of their Illinois lands to the United States. o United States Army establishes Fort Dearborn at present Chicago. 1804 - William Clark (1770-1838) and his troops depart from Camp Dubois, Madison County, to join Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) for westward explorations. 1809 - Congress organizes the Illinois Territory, with Kaskaskia the capital, Ninian Edwards (1775-1833) the governor. 1811 o The first coal mine in Illinois is opened in Jackson County. o New Madrid, Missouri, earthquake, the largest in United States history, damages southern Illinois (recurs in 1812). 1812 - Potawatomi Indians massacre fifty-two troops and civilians in destroying Fort Dearborn. 1813 - Land offices are opened at Kaskaskia and Shawneetown. 1814 - The first newspaper in the state, the Illinois Herald, is published at Kaskaskia. 1816 o Fort Armstrong is built at Rock Island, and Fort Dearborn is rebuilt at Chicago. o The first bank in Illinois, at Shawneetown, is chartered by the territorial legislature. 1817 o Morris Birkbeck (1764-1825) and George Flower (1780-1862) establish an English settlement at Albion. o War of 1812 veterans begin receiving 160-acre land warrants in the Illinois Military Tract, a region between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. 1818 - Illinois becomes the twenty-first state, with Kaskaskia the capital and Shadrach Bond (1773-1832) the first governor. Population of the state is 34,620. 1819 - Kickapoo Indians move west of the Mississippi, relinquishing most claims to central Illinois lands. 1820 - Vandalia becomes the state capital. 1821 - General Assembly charters a state bank at Vandalia, with branches at Shawneetown, Edwardsville, and Brownsville. 1823 - Galena becomes a center for lead mining. 1824 - Voters defeat a constitutional convention call to permit slavery in the state. 1825 o Gurdon S. Hubbard (1802-1886) establishes the Vincennes Trace from southern Illinois to Lake Michigan. o General Assembly enacts the first public school law and levies a school tax. o Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) visits Kaskaskia and Shawneetown on a tour of the United States. 1827 - John Mason Peck (1789-1858) founds Rock Spring Seminary, the first college in the state. 1829 - Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi cede lands in northern Illinois by treaty at Prairie du Chien. 1830 o The first state prison is built at Alton. o Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) moves to Illinois from Indiana. o James Hall (1793-1858) launches Illinois Monthly Magazine, the first literary periodical published west of Ohio. 1832 - Black Hawk War ends with Sauk and Fox Indians leaving the Illinois lands they had ceded in 1804. 1833 - Treaty of Chicago provides for United States acquisition and settlement of the last remaining Indian lands in Illinois. 1835 - General Assembly grants a charter for the Jacksonville Female Academy, the first institution in the state for women's education. 1836 o Illinois and Michigan Canal construction is begun between Lake Michigan and the Illinois Valley; completed in 1848. o Galena and Chicago Union Railroad is chartered; completed twelve years later. 1837 o Chicago receives a city charter; William Ogden (1805-1877) becomes the first mayor. o At Alton a pro-slavery mob murders abolitionist editor Elijah P. Lovejoy (b. 1802). o John Deere (1804-1886) of Grand Detour designs a self-scouring steel plow. 1838 - Northern Cross Railroad construction is begun between Meredosia and Springfield; the line is completed in 1842. 1839 o Cherokee Indians pass through southern Illinois on the "Trail of Tears" to Oklahoma. o Springfield becomes the state capital. o National Road is completed from Cumberland, Maryland, to Vandalia. 1839 - Joseph Smith (1805-1844) chooses Nauvoo as headquarters for the Mormon church. 1841 - Chicagoan John S. Wright (1815-1874) begins publishing Prairie Farmer magazine. 1842 - British author Charles Dickens (1812-1870) visits southern Illinois, described in his American Notes (1842). 1844 - Anti-Mormons assassinate Mormon leaders Joseph and Hyrum (b. 1800) Smith at Carthage. 1846 o Mormons leave Nauvoo for the Great Salt Lake Basin in Utah. o Donner party leaves Springfield by wagon train for California; forty-two perish in Sierra Mountains snowstorms. o Erik Jansson (1808-1850) and Jonas Olson (1802?-1898) establish a Swedish religious colony at Bishop Hill. 1847 o Joseph Medill (1823-1899) founds the Chicago Tribune. o Jacksonville educator Jonathan Baldwin Turner (1805-1899) introduces Osage orange hedges as farm fencing. o Inventor Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809-1884) opens a plant in Chicago for manufacturing wheat reapers. 1848 - Chicago Board of Trade is organized; it is now the largest and oldest commodity futures exchange in the world. 1849 - Ètienne Cabet (1788-1856) establishes a French Icarian communal settlement at Nauvoo. 1850 o Population of the state is 851,470. o Illinois Central Railroad receives the first federal land grant for rail construction. 1853 The first state fair is held at Springfield. General Assembly enacts legislation to prevent free blacks from settling in the state. 1855 - General Assembly adopts a free public school system. 1856 o The first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River is completed between Rock Island and Davenport, Iowa. o Illinois Central Railroad is completed between Chicago, Galena, and Cairo. o Rand McNally is established in Chicago; by 1880 it is the world's largest mapmaking company. o Chicago Historical Society is founded, with William H. Brown (1796-1867) the first president. 1858 - Republican Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861) hold seven debates in the United States Senate contest; Douglas wins the election. 1860 o Lincoln is elected President of the United States, defeating three other candidates. o Luxury steamer Lady Elgin sinks in Lake Michigan; nearly three hundred perish. 1861 - Civil War begins; Cairo becomes a troop and supply center for the Union Army. 1862 - Union League of America is founded in Pekin for the promotion of patriotism and Union loyalty. 1864 - Lincoln is reelected President. 1865 o General Assembly repeals measures against black settlement (Black Laws); is the first state legislature to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. o Lincoln is assassinated in Washington, D.C.; buried in Springfield. o Chicago Union Stock Yards opens; by 1900 employs more than one third of packing industry laborers in the nation. 1866 - Grand Army of the Republic is established in Decatur; the first GAR convention is held in Springfield. 1867 o General Assembly establishes the Illinois Industrial University at Champaign-Urbana, renamed the University of Illinois in 1885. o George M. Pullman (1831-1897) founds the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago, manufacturing railroad sleeping cars. o Illinois Normal University geologist John Wesley Powell (1834-1902) begins surveys of the Rocky Mountain region; becomes director of the United States Geological Survey in 1880. 1868 o Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), Civil War general from Galena, is elected President of the United States. o Marshall Field & Co. department store opens in downtown Chicago; at his death, Field (1834-1906) is the city's wealthiest citizen. 1871 - Chicago Fire destroys eighteen thousand downtown buildings, with losses estimated at $200 million. 1872 o Chicagoan John Jones (1816-1879) becomes a Cook County commissioner, the first African-American to hold elective office in Illinois. o Chicago merchant Aaron Montgomery Ward (1844-1913) establishes the first large-scale mail order business. o General Assembly grants communities taxing authority to establish and maintain public libraries. 1873 o Frances Willard (1839-1898) founds the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Evanston. o Joseph F. Glidden (1813-1906) of DeKalb develops barbed wire fencing, patented in 1874. 1876 - United States Supreme Court establishes in Munn v. Illinois the principle that business of a public nature is subject to state regulation. 1877 - General Assembly establishes the Illinois National Guard. 1878 - Bell Telephone Company of Illinois begins service in Chicago. 1880 - Leslie E. Keeley (1832-1900) and John R. Oughton (1858-1925) establish the Keeley Institute in Dwight for treatment of alcoholism; by 1900 franchised sanitoriums are operating in many states. 1883 o General Assembly enacts the first compulsory school attendance legislation. o William LeBaron Jenney (1832-1907) designs the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, generally known as the world's first skyscraper. 1886 - Haymarket Square bombing and riot in Chicago during a labor rally cause several deaths; eight anarchists are convicted, four are hanged, and one dies in prison. o o 1888 - Chicago attorney Melville W. Fuller (1833-1910) is named Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. 1889 o Jane Addams (1860-1935) and Ellen Gates Starr (1859-1940) open Hull House, one of the nation's first settlement houses, for foreign-born residents of Chicago. o Evangelist Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899) founds the Chicago Bible Institute for training missionaries to foreign lands. o Illinois State Historical Library is established by the state legislature. o John Mitchell (1870-1919) of Spring Valley becomes president of the United Mine Workers of America (to 1908). 1890 o University of Chicago is incorporated, with William Rainey Harper (1856-1906) the first president. o Chicago Symphony Orchestra is established, with Christian Theodore Thomas (1835-1905) the first conductor. o African-American surgeon Daniel Hale Williams (1858-1931) organizes Provident Hospital in Chicago, the first black hospital in the United States; performs the first open-heart surgery in 1893. 1892 o Chicago attorney Myra Bradwell (1831-1894) becomes the first woman admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court. o Canal construction to reverse the Chicago River flow is begun; completed in 1900. o Illinois and Mississippi (Hennepin) Canal construction is begun between the Illinois and the Rock rivers; completed in 1907. o Adlai Stevenson I (1835-1914) of Bloomington is elected Vice President of the United States on the ticket with Grover Cleveland. 1893 o World's Columbian Exposition is held in Chicago, commemorating the 400th anniversary of European exploratory voyages to the western hemisphere. o General Assembly establishes regulations for child labor and factory inspections. o Governor John Peter Altgeld (1847-1902) pardons three imprisoned Haymarket anarchists. 1894 o Pullman factory strike in Chicago becomes a national railway strike; federal troops are called to quell mob violence. o Chicago attorney Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) unsuccessfully defends socialist leader Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) on charges relating to the Pullman strike. 1896 - Salem native William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) wins the first of three presidential nominations; is defeated each time. 1898 -United Mine Workers win labor disputes at Pana and Virden, after eleven miners and guards are killed. 1899 - General Assembly creates the first juvenile court system in the nation. 20th century 1900 o o o o Population of the state is 4,821,550. Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal opens between Chicago and Lockport. Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959) establishes a studio in Oak Park for designing "prairie style" architecture. Chicago newspaperman Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) launches his literary career with Sister Carrie, the first major novel set in Chicago.