Source:
Kenneth Olson, 217-333-9639; krolson@illinois.edu
Original
northern border of Illinois was south of Chicago and Lake Michigan
URBANA,
Ill. – Chicago residents today might have had a Wisconsin zip code if the
originally proposed northern boundary of Illinois had been approved. It was a
straight line from the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan to just south of the
Rock and Mississippi River confluence. University of Illinois soil scientist
Ken Olson said that had the proposed northern border not been changed, the
state of Illinois would have a much smaller population and footprint with the
northern 51 miles of the Illinois Territory ceded to Wisconsin when it became a
state in 1848.
Olson
says Illinois has Nathaniel Pope to thank for the additional farmland,
population, and lakefront property. The northern border was moved north to
allow the linkage of the Great Lakes shipping route to the Illinois and
Mississippi river navigation channels, giving Illinois a valuable shoreline on
Lake Michigan and a location for a shipping port hub which became Chicago.
“Pope
was Illinois Territory’s congressional delegate at the time,” explained Olson.
“He and his brother, a Kentucky senator, were able to convince Congress to move
the proposed border to its present-day location—and that shift in the northern
boundary completely altered the fortunes of Wisconsin and Illinois. In addition
to the economic benefits of the Chicago port, Illinois acquired 5.5 million
acres of very productive soil for farming.” The linkage of the Great Lakes
waterway to the Illinois and Mississippi river waterways provided a northern
route to move troops and supplies during the Civil War to avoid the contested
Ohio River.
Illinois’s
western border location was determined by an intervention of nature in the
Pleistocene Era. “Numerous glacial advances covered most of Iowa, Missouri, and
Illinois,” Olson said. “Meltwaters from these glaciers contributed to the
realignment of the Mississippi River, which became the western border when
Illinois became a state. Before the Pleistocene glacial period, the ancient
Mississippi River passed much farther to the east. The land between the Quad
Cities Peoria and Alton would not be part of Illinois. So if the Mississippi
River had not been realigned by the glaciers, another 7.5 million acres would
belong to the states of Missouri and Iowa.” Illinois would have lost some of
its best soils for corn and soybean production.
Looking
southwest, Olson said that seismic activity in the New Madrid area and glacial
melt waters approximately 12,000 to 15,000 years ago affected the re-routing of
the ancient Mississippi and Ohio rivers to their current locations. He pointed
to the modern-day Cache River valley of southern Illinois with its swamps,
sloughs, and shallow lakes—remnants of the ancient Ohio River whose confluence
with the Mississippi River was once northwest of Cairo.
“Following
seismic activity in 1000 A.D., the Cache River valley dropped to its current
elevation and was no longer connected to the current Ohio River,” Olson said.
“The Cache River valley is deeper at a lower elevation, between 320 and 340
feet, than would otherwise be expected in a slow-moving swampy river system,
and the presence of thousand-year-old baldcypress trees confirm the natural
conversion of river bottomland into swamplands.
“If
all of these waterway-related changes had not occurred, the State of Illinois
would only have 22 million acres and would be substantially smaller than its
current 35 million acres,” Olson said. The agricultural lands in Illinois would
have been reduced by 40 percent, affecting its agricultural productive
capacity, which is an economic engine of the State of Illinois.
Olson
concluded. “Chicago and Rockford would be in Wisconsin, Cairo and Metropolis in
Kentucky, Quincy in Missouri, and Rock Island, Moline, and Peoria would be in
Iowa.” The commercial activity from all these cities would not have contributed
to Illinois’s economic development.
Olson’s
research suggests that the size and shape of Illinois may have been
dramatically different without these natural waterway border changes to the
west and south and Nathaniel Pope’s intercession on Illinois’s northern
boundary.
“How
Waterways, Glacial Melt Waters, and Earthquakes Re-aligned Ancient Rivers and
Changed Illinois Borders,” was published in the Journal of Earth Science and
Engineering and was co-authored by Fred Christensen, an instructor at the
University of Illinois Osher Lifelong Learning Center. Olson is a researcher in
the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences in the College
of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of
Illinois. The published paper is available at https://uofi.box.com/Illinoisborder.
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