🌾Illinois

The Prairie State · Land of Lincoln

Illinois is where the tallgrass prairie meets the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Chicago — the state's economic engine — is the third-largest city in the United States and was long the country's rail and meatpacking capital. Springfield, the quieter political capital downstate, was home to Abraham Lincoln for 25 years before the presidency, and his grave there is the most-visited presidential tomb in the country.

Native Lands and the French

The Illiniwek Confederacy of Algonquian-speaking peoples gave Illinois its name. French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reached the region in 1673, and the French established the first permanent European settlements at Cahokia and Kaskaskia. The area passed to the British after the French and Indian War and to the United States after the Revolution. Illinois became the 21st state in 1818.

Lincoln's Illinois

Abraham Lincoln moved to Illinois in 1830 and lived in the state for 31 years. He worked as a storekeeper in New Salem, served four terms in the Illinois General Assembly, practiced law across the Eighth Judicial Circuit, and settled with his family in Springfield. He debated Stephen Douglas across Illinois in 1858 and was elected president from his Springfield home in 1860. Today Illinois license plates still read "Land of Lincoln."

Chicago: The City that Works

Chicago was a swampy settlement of fewer than 100 people in 1830. By 1890 it was the second-largest city in the United States, incorporated, railroaded, and rebuilt after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 that destroyed much of the central city. The fire cleared ground for architectural innovation — the Home Insurance Building (1885) is considered the first modern skyscraper. Chicago hosted the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, celebrating 400 years since Columbus.

Agriculture and Industry

Illinois is one of the top corn and soybean producers in the country. Caterpillar, John Deere, State Farm, Walgreens, and Boeing are all headquartered in the state. The Argonne and Fermi national laboratories — the latter the site of the world's first controlled nuclear chain reaction in 1942 — have kept Illinois at the center of American scientific research for nearly a century.

Illinois Facts

• Chicago's Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) was the tallest building in the world from 1973 to 1998.
• Four U.S. presidents have lived in Illinois: Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama.
• The first McDonald's franchise was opened by Ray Kroc in Des Plaines in 1955.
• Illinois has more units of local government (nearly 7,000) than any other state.
• The state's highest point, Charles Mound, is only 1,235 feet above sea level — lower than many downstate church steeples.

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