The city of Cairo, Illinois, located at the southern tip of the state of Illinois, is a community steeped in rich Civil War history. The community is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and served a major role in the Union Army’s strategy for victory. Understanding the geographic significance of control of the two rivers, General Ulysses S. Grant commanded forces that controlled the region’s waterways and rail lines. Grant, who was assigned to command the District of Southeast Missouri, occupied Cairo early in the war (circa 1861), using it as a base for western operations for Union forces. 

Amongst the most famed conflicts in the United States’ storied history is the Revolutionary War, a period that ultimately allowed for the birth of our young nation. While most remember the war for its iconic battles along the East Coast, beginning with the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19 of 1775, many of the important events that steered the direction of the war took place well beyond the original colonies. Amongst the places that helped sway the tide of the war in the Union’s favor was Illinois Country – a faintly developed land that serves as the background for one of the most underappreciated chapters of our country’s early history.

At Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, there’s a 750-plot section owned by the Showmen’s League of America. This plot has a chilling past that has intrigued and haunted visitors for over a century. Known as Showmen’s Rest, this section of Woodlawn Cemetery is the final resting place for dozens of circus performers who died in one of the worst train crashes in U.S. history—the tragic Hammond Circus Train Wreck of 1918.

Anyone who has visited the Illinois State Capitol in the past couple of years has noticed a lot of construction. The north wing of the Capitol is currently in the midst of a three-year renovation project which will bring the historic building into the 21st century while preserving its 19th century atmosphere and décor.

Route 66 was an iconic highway that captured the imagination of the American traveler and made for the quintessential road trip.  U.S. Highway 66 operated as a federal highway from 1926 until its decommissioning in 1985. In celebration of the historic highway's 100th anniversary in 2026,  the Illinois State Museum is collecting stories from individuals who experienced the Illinois leg of the original Route 66. 

Sometime during the 1873 legislative session, Andrew Henry of Greenville, a judge and state legislator, sat for a portrait with an acclaimed Springfield pencil and crayon artist named Dennis Williams.

Williams completed the illustration, signed it and marked it with the year, then placed the drawing in a frame, on which was stenciled “From C.C. Howorth’s Picture & Frame Store. No. 14, American House Block.”

The State Archives serves as the depository of public records of Illinois state and local governmental agencies which possess permanent administrative, legal, or historical research values. More than 75,000 cubic feet of paper, microfilm, photographs and audio and film recordings are housed in the Margaret Cross Norton Building on the capitol complex in Springfield. Paper records date back before 1818 statehood and include governors' correspondence, public acts, departmental histories, census records, military records, election results and more.

Illinois will be celebrating its 200th birthday in 2018 and has hundreds of historic landmarks that tell the story of this great state.

Be part of history and the Illinois Bicentennial.

Plan your trip in amazing Illinois.

Learn more travel and Illinois history.


Here are 12 Illinois historic landmarks you should visit in 2018:

1. Nobel-Seymour Crippen House 
2. Ulysses S. Grant House
3. Graham Building
4. B. Harley Bradley House
5. Steeple Building
6. Woodstock Opera House 
7. David Davis Mansion 
8. Broadwell Inn & Tavern of Clayville
9. Beecher Hall and Illinois College
10. Fort de Chartres 
11. Joseph Smith House 
12. New Philadelphia 

In 1938, then in Illinois' 18th Congressional District, they elected Jessie Sumner to Congress — only the third woman from the state to serve in the House. Sumner, running on a vigorous anti-New Deal platform, defeated U.S. Rep. James A. Meeks, a Danville Democrat, in a race that attracted national attention.

Well, Sumner attracted national attention with good reason.

Jessie Sumner, born on a farm in Iroquois County in 1898, was accustomed to making history: She was the first American woman to study law at Oxford University in England, the first woman elected a county judge in Illinois and, according to her, the first woman elected county judge in any state.

Click here to continue reading Tom Kacich's column in the Champaign News-Gazette.

Chief Justice Rita Garman

Illinois Supreme Court Justice Rita Garman of Danville made history on October 28th of this year.  Upon her swearing in at a ceremony at the Vermilion County Courthouse, Justice Garman became only the second female Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court in our state’s history. Chief Justice Garman is also the longest-serving female judge in the state, and the first Chief Justice to have served in virtually every judicial capacity in Illinois.

Chief Justice Garman grew up wanting to become a lawyer; a goal that was strongly encouraged by her late parents. Some law school professors admonished her, however, for taking up a seat in class that could have gone to a man.  During her career on the Illinois Supreme Court, she has actively participated in hundreds of opinions as well as the Court’s administration; including the establishment of a Special Court Committee on Child Custody Issues to ensure that children’s best interests are the primary focus in child custody cases.

Representative Chad Hays (R-Catlin) sponsored and led Illinois House passage House Resolution 627 which honors Chief Justice Garman for her remarkable career of service to her community and to the people of Illinois.

Want to know more about the Illinois Supreme Court?

In a recent column, Reboot Illinois provides a little background on the current members of the Illinois Supreme Court.

Ronald Reagan went from a major league baseball announcer, to a Hollywood movie star, to a corporate pitchman, to Governor of California to President of the United States. Along the way, he became world famous as an actor, emerged as a leader of the conservative movement, governed a state at a time when it seemed to be spiraling out of control, challenged two incumbent presidents, survived an assassination attempt, saved the American economy and won the Cold War.

Ronald Reagan did all these things and more. But his story begins right here in Illinois.

U.S. Rep. Oscar Stanton De Priest (R-Chicago)
was the first African American elected to
Congress in the 20th century, and the first
ever from any northern state.

In the years immediately after the Civil War, African-Americans suddenly advanced from enslavement to citizenship and made huge strides towards full equality under the law. African-Americans sat in the House and Senate, holding seats from states of the old Confederacy. Unfortunately, the gains did not last long, and with the end of Reconstruction and the withdrawal of the last federal troops from the south in 1877, Jim Crow and segregation began to rise, erasing many of the gains.

By the end of the 19^th Century, when it came to membership in Congress, African-Americans were again on the outside looking in. That all changed in 1928 with the election of the first African-American congressman of the 20^th Century, U.S. Rep. Oscar Stanton De Priest (R-Illinois).

Governor Richard J. Oglesby,
(R-Decatur) the only
man elected to three separate
terms as Governor of Illinois

Among the collection of the Illinois State Military Museum sits a most unusual artifact. Beside the weapons, flags and old uniforms from wars past, visitors will see a wooden leg in a carriage. The prosthetic belonged to Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, victor at the Alamo and leader of Mexican forces during the 1846-48 Mexican-American war. The relic made its way to Springfield compliments of the 4^th Illinois infantry regiment, which captured it and just missed capturing Santa Anna himself at the battle of Cerro Gordo. Some of those Illinois troops were led into the fight by 1^st Lieutenant, and later Governor, Richard J. Oglesby (R-Decatur).


Richard J. Oglesby was born in Kentucky, in 1824 and moved to a farm near Decatur at 12. He practiced law in Springfield, where he befriended a local attorney named Lincoln. But the law did not hold the appeal for Oglesby that military service did, and so with the outbreak of war in 1846, he was commissioned a lieutenant and saw action at Veracruz and Cerro Gordo.

U.S. Rep. James Mann (R-Chicago)
introduced the first legislation to
take on the issue of human trafficking.
He also was a leader in the fight
for granting the vote to women.

Declaring that “the time is right, the people are ready,” U.S. Rep. James Mann (R-Chicago) put before the U.S. House of Representatives the proposed 19^th Amendment to the Constitution, which stated that, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex.” That day in May 1919 was to be the culmination of the life’s work of the Illinoisan and former House Republican Leader, who dedicated his professional career to fighting for causes which we take for granted today.

James Robert Mann was born in Bloomington and educated at the University of Illinois and the Union College of Law, now known as Northwestern, before being admitted to the bar in Chicago in 1881. He served on the board of education and the Chicago City Council, and was chairman of the Republican state convention in 1894. Mann began his congressional career in 1896, winning election to the House, where he would serve until his death in 1922.

Illinois has a long history of Governors taking office under difficult circumstances. Governor John Wood assumed the office when his predecessor died just before the civil war. John Beveridge became Governor in 1873 after just ten days as Lieutenant Governor.  Others have taken office suddenly following deaths, resignations and an impeachment, while still more were elected and inaugurated through the normal process, only to take office amidst war, economic crisis, social unrest or other grim trials. But Governor Frank Lowden (R-Ogle County) falls into the latter category in a big way: facing each one of these challenges during his term as the state’s 25^th Chief Executive.

            In 1837, an abolitionist publisher named Elijah Lovejoy was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois. Lovejoy had published his anti-slavery newspaper, the Alton Observer, and a companion paper in St. Louis, since the early 1830s, and his writing had enraged opponents both in Illinois and in Missouri, where slavery remained legal. That fall, Lovejoy was murdered and his printing press dumped into the Mississippi. The mob thought they had silenced the voice of abolitionism in the region, but they were mistaken. Instead, the martyred Elijah Lovejoy and his cause would be replaced by his brother, Rep. Owen Lovejoy (R-Princeton).

David Davis Mansion – Bloomington, IL

Every day, hundreds of legislators, staff and visitors to the state capitol complex pass through the doors of the large, 1950s-style office building just west of the Capitol. Most are familiar with the Stratton Building, but not all know about the building’s namesake, the 32^nd Governor of Illinois, William G. Stratton (R-Morris).

Abraham Lincoln, whose Emancipation Proclamation freed more than four million slaves, was an effective politician, profound statesman, and a shrewd diplomat. He also had a keen sense of humor. His stories and anecdotes gave rise to his moniker as the "Great Story Telling President." For the next few weeks we will share some of those stories from the *Project Gutenberg's Lincoln's Yarns and Stories, by Alexander K. McClure. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Mr. T. W. S. Kidd, of Springfield, says that he once heard a lawyer opposed to Lincoln trying to convince a jury that precedent was superior to law, and that custom made things legal in all cases.

When Lincoln arose to answer him he told the jury he would argue his case in the same way.

"Old 'Squire Bagly, from Menard, came into my office and said, 'Lincoln, I want your advice as a lawyer. Has a man what's been elected justice of the peace a right to issue a marriage license?'

I told him he had not; when the old 'squire threw himself back in his chair very indignantly, and said, 'Lincoln, I thought you was a lawyer.

Now Bob Thomas and me had a bet on this thing, and we agreed to let you decide; but if this is your opinion I don't want it, for I know a thunderin' sight better, for I have been 'squire now for eight years and have done it all the time.'"

Visitors to the second floor rotunda of the Illinois State Capitol are treated to a wealth of information about Illinois history. There stand the statues of great Illinois pioneers: Lincoln and Douglas, Gov. John Wood, Rep. Lottie Holman O’Neill, and Sen. Adelbert Roberts (R-Chicago), the state Senate’s first African-American member.