Present-day Illinois was inhabited by various indigenous cultures for thousands of years, including the advanced civilization centered in the Cahokia region. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi and Illinois River in the 17th century in the region they called Illinois Country, as part of the sprawling colony of New France. Following U.S. independence in 1783, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky via the Ohio River, and the population grew from south to north. Illinois was part of the United States' oldest territory, the Northwest Territory, and in 1818 it achieved statehood. The Erie Canal brought increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes, and the small settlement of Chicago became one of the fastest growing cities in the world, benefiting from its location as one of the few natural harbors in southwestern Lake Michigan. The invention of the self-scouring steel plow by Illinoisan John Deere turned the state's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. In the mid-19th century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal and a sprawling railroad network greatly facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation.
The Elgin, Illinois, Centennial half dollar was a fifty-cent commemorative coin issued by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1936, part of the wave of commemoratives authorized by Congress and struck that year. Intended to commemorate the centennial of the founding of Elgin, the piece was designed by local sculptor Trygve Rovelstad. The obverse depicts an idealized head of a pioneer man. The reverse shows a grouping of pioneers, and is based upon a sculptural group that Rovelstad hoped to build as a memorial to those who settled Illinois, but which was not erected in his lifetime.
Rovelstad had heard of other efforts to gain authorization for commemorative coins, which were sold by the Mint to a designated group at face value and then retailed to the public at a premium. In 1935, through his congressman, he had legislation introduced into the House of Representatives for a commemorative coin in honor of Elgin's centennial that year. Rovelstad hoped that the proposed coin would both depict and be a source of funds for his memorial to the pioneers. Unlike many commemorative coins of that era, the piece was not bought up by dealers and speculators, but was sold directly to collectors at the issue price. Art historian Cornelius Vermeule considered the Elgin coin among the most outstanding American commemoratives. (Read more...)
... that although Olga Hartman believed that her basic research on marine worms had no practical value, it was applied to experimental studies of oysters?
... that Jack Washburn was called "Cinderella Boy" for winning a starring role in his first Broadway show?
... that four course records were broken during the 2023 Chicago Marathon(women's winner pictured)?
... that the restaurant CosMc's is named after a character from McDonaldland?
... that Salty Parker, who spent 60 years in organized baseball, described his lifelong love of the game as "a beautiful disease"?
Image 1The Mendota Hills Wind Farm in Lee County. Built in 2003 by Navitas Energy, Mendota Hills was the first utility scale wind farm in Illinois. Photo credit: Dori (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 5"Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Republican candidate for the presidency, 1860," a lithograph by Leopold Grozelier, et al. According to the Library of Congress, "Thomas Hicks painted a portrait of Lincoln at his office in Springfield specifically for this lithograph." Image credit: Thomas Hicks (painter), Leopold Grozelier (lithographer), W. William Schaus (publisher), J.H. Bufford's Lith. (printer), Adam Cuerden (restoration) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 6Chris Youngwinding up for a four-seam fastball in the bullpen while warming up before a 2007 game. Behind Young can be seen the Wrigley Field scoreboard and bleachers. Image credit: TonyTheTiger (photographer) and Jjron (editing) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 7A tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) in Urbana. Image credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 8The Campana Factory in Batavia. It was built in 1936 to serve as a factory for The Campana Company, which produced Italian Balm, the most popular hand lotion in the United States during the Great Depression. The Streamline Moderne and Bauhaus design by Frank D. Chase features many innovative technologies, such as air conditioning. Photo credit: User:MrPanyGoff (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 10A great blue heron(Ardea herodias) flying with nesting material in Illinois. There is a colony of about twenty heron nests in trees nearby. Image credit: PhotoBobil (photographer), Snowmanradio (upload), PetarM (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 11Magnolia Manor in Cairo, built by businessman Charles A. Galigher in 1869. Photo credit: MuZemike (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 12A panoramic view of corn fields near Royal in Champaign County. Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 13This 1941 photograph shows the maze of livestock pens and walkways at the Union Stock Yards, Chicago. Image credit: John Vachon, Farm Security Administration (photographer), Darwinek (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 15Lithograph advertisement for the CH&D Railway showing the interior of a Pullman dining car, 1894, with a Pullman porter serving two men at a table. Image credit: Strobridge & Co. (lithographers), Library of Congress (digital file), Mu (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 18A mural by Chicago artist Louis Grell in the Springfield Amtrak station. The mural depicts a quote by Abraham Lincoln, a map of the post-1947 Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad, and the seals of the seven states that the railroad served. Image credit: Louis Grell (painter), RI-Bill (photographer) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 19The McFarland Carillon is a 185-foot bell tower with 49 bells at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. The tower was built in 2008-09 and was designed by Fred Guyton of Peckham, Guyton, Albers & Viets. Image credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 21The Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), the world's tallest building from 1973 to 2004. The tower's innovative bundled tube structure was designed by Bruce Graham and Fazlur Khan. Photo credit: Soakologist (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 23The "Chunkey Player" is an 8.5 inch (22 cm) high by 5.5 inch (14 cm) wide Missouri flint clay statuette depicting a player of the ancient Native American game of chunkey. Believed to have been originally crafted at or near the Cahokia site in Illinois, it was found in Muskogee County, Oklahoma. Photo credit: User:TimVickers (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 24Symbols of many religions are carved in concrete relief on the exterior of the Bahá'í House of Worship in Wilmette. The temple was designed by the architect Louis Bourgeois and constructed between 1921 and 1953. Image credit: ctot_not_def (photographer), Tobias Vetter (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 27Martyrdom of Joseph and Hiram Smith in Carthage jail, June 27th, 1844. This unusual black-and-white lithograph has a second yellow-brown layer on top of it. Image credit: G.W. Fasel (painter); Charles G. Crehen (lithographer); Nagel & Weingaertner, N.Y. (publishers); Library of Congress (digital file); Adam Cuerden (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 31Photograph of suffragette, social worker, philosopher, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams in 1924 or 1926. Image credit: Bain News Service (photograph), Adam Cuerden (restoration) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 36The Chicago Theatre. Designed by the firm Rapp and Rapp, it was the flagship theater for Balaban and Katz group. Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 38A Canada goose(Branta canadensis) swimming in Palatine. Photo credit: Joe Ravi (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 39American Gothic, a 1930 painting by Grant Wood, has been in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago since shortly after its creation. The painting is one of the most familiar images in 20th-century American art and has been widely parodied in popular culture. Image credit: Grant Wood (painter), Google Art Project (digital file), DcoetzeeBot (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 40The water tower and barracks complex at Fort Sheridan in 1898. The principal buildings of the fort were built between 1889 and 1910 by the firm Holabird & Roche. Image credit: Detroit Photographic Co.; Bathgems (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 41The dome of the Illinois State Capitol. Designed by architects Cochrane and Garnsey, the dome's interior features a plaster frieze painted to resemble bronze and illustrating scenes from Illinois history. Stained glass windows, including a stained glass replica of the State Seal, appear in the oculus. Ground was first broken for the new capitol on March 11, 1869, and it was completed twenty years later. Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 45A mill belonging to the grain company Bunge Lauhoff in downtown Danville. The facility was built in 1947. Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 46Marina City is a mixed-use residential-commercial building complex in downtown Chicago. The complex, designed by Bertrand Goldberg and completed in 1964, consists of two corncob-shaped 179 m, 65-story towers. Photo credit: Diego Delso (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 47A pyrite disc, also called a "miner's dollar," from a coal mine in Sparta. Image credit: Cccefalon (photographer and digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 48"The Great Presidential Puzzle": This chromolithograph cartoon about the 1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago shows Roscoe Conkling, leader of the Stalwarts of the Republican Party, playing a puzzle game. All blocks in the puzzle are the heads of the potential Republican presidential candidates. The cartoon parodies the famous 15 puzzle. Image credit: Mayer, Merkel, & Ottmann (lithographers); James Albert Wales (artist); Jujutacular (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 50A street view of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park. Wright built the house in 1889 and added the Studio and Connecting Corridor in 1898. The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust has restored the property to its appearance in 1909, the last year the architect lived there with his family. Photo credit: User:Banewson (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 51A poster for the Century of Progress World's Fair showing exhibition buildings with boats in the foreground.. Image credit: Weimer Pursell (artist); Neely Printing Co., Chicago (silkscreen print); Jujutacular (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 54An illustration of Kincaid Mounds, a city of the Mississippian culture, at its height. The city was located near the Ohio River on the boundary of present day Massac and Pope Counties. Image credit: H. Rowe (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
October 26, 2021: Workers for Chicago-based McDonald's in ten cities go on strike to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment in the workplace.
October 18, 2021: The Chicago Police Department reports that more than a third of its officers have failed to meet a deadline for reporting whether they have received a COVID-19 vaccine.
Executive branch of the government of the State of Illinois, Fort Gage, History of European exploration in Illinois, Morris Selz, Pre-Columbian history of Illinois, Wayne Motley, Western Wheel Company, Citizens Utility Board
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