Nearly everything in ILLINOIS
revolves around Chicago , the largest and most exciting
of the Great Lakes cities. At the state's northeastern corner,
on the shores of Lake Michigan , Chicago has a skyline to rival
any city's, plus a gamut of top-rated museums, restaurants and
cafés, and innumerable bars and nightclubs paying homage
to the city's strong jazz and blues heritage. Seventy-five percent
of the state's twelve million population live within commuting
distance of Chicago's energetic center, which controls the bulk
of the state economy - Illinois is the third largest agricultural
producer in the US. The sole exception to the endless
flat prairies elsewhere is far to the south, where the forested
Shawnee Hills rise between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.
The contrast between the
quiet rural hinterlands and the buzzing urban center could hardly
be greater. That said, Illinois does hold a few places to head
for, though, apart from a couple of mildly exciting college towns,
most are of historic rather than current interest. First explored
and settled by the French, in 1763 the area that's now Illinois
was sold to the English. Granted statehood in 1818, Illinois
remained a distant frontier until the mid-1830s when, after a
series of uprisings, the native Sauk were subjugated and settlers
began to arrive in sizable numbers. Among these were the first
followers of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, who
established a large colony along the Mississippi at Nauvoo. The
Mormons met with suspicion and persecution and, after Smith was
murdered by a lynch mob in 1844, fled west to Utah.
Other early immigrants
included the young Abraham Lincoln , who practiced law from 1837
onward in Springfield , the state capital and home of
a wide range of Lincolniana, including his restored home, his
law offices and vari ous other period buildings and artifacts,
as well as his monumental tomb. Indeed, Illinois' self-proclaimed
nickname - emblazoned on its car license plates - is "Land
of Lincoln," and many other central Illinois towns claim
important roles in the making of the sixteenth US president.
THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA