Illinois Trails & Traces

Initiated in the president's office of Southern Illinois University as a state bicentennial project, this book is best understood as a celebration of the many Illinois(s) within our state, with an understandable emphasis on southern Illinois. The book's framework is found in the observation that our roads and highways, which get us hither, thither, and yon, can serve as a kind of touchstone of our history. Starting with paleo-era hunters and gatherers crossing into what we call Illinois and finishing with the Great Migration of the post–World War II era into Chicago, the book covers more than ten thousand years of Illinois history, albeit somewhat sketchily.Organizing their insights into ten chapters, the authors provide overviews of historic eras by presenting evidence of our human presence as found in places of habitation and gathering. These are linked by the era's paths, trails, roads, rails, and highways. They note that some of these early routes remain in use today. Today's I-74 is, in places, the same route as was likely set by buffalo and later used by Algonquin-speaking people, early white settlers, and automobilists in the twentieth century. The organization of the material is sensible and develops well. I especially enjoyed the section on early highways and hard roads, when town promoters blazed routes on their local good roads to get tourists to drive through their towns. That the authors found a tall, cast iron, way-finding marker from the Burlington Way promotions, located at a rural road intersection, is remarkable.The historical narratives are well written and lay necessary groundwork for telling local stories linked to place. Readers will benefit from the four maps that locate sites of interest and travel ways mentioned in the text. I found myself referencing those maps to keep me oriented, for the text led me to obscure places of import. I found myself reaching for other detailed maps to follow the course of less-traveled roads. This underscores an important message in the book. We do not fully appreciate the marvelous past of our state for much of it is bypassed by four lanes of concrete highway.These local places are ably photographed by coauthor Daniel Overturf. He has an eye for seeing the past in today's landscape. Great old bridges of stone, iron, and steel are captured, but also the context for them is found in the image. His images of historic structures and places call us in. They are set in differing seasons, and they document current condition resulting from floods, abandonment, as well as preservation.Another success in the book is found in the subtitle, Portraits and Stories. For the book features today's Illinoisans, those keepers of the past who work to preserve and interpret their Illinois, their town, and their special place. Onsite portraiture (also by Overturf) and word portraits of this diverse set of fifty-seven local historians are paired throughout the book. The book celebrates their lives and contributions in saving some part of the past that they have found meaningful and that can be meaningful to us. As a visitor to small town historic sites, I find that the photographs and accompanying narratives capture the spirit of our local historians. They are excited about their work; they bring insight, knowledge, and skills to their interpretation of the past. Such interpretation is available to those of us who get off the interstate highways.Due to the very broad timespan covered, there are occasional errors in fact. For instance, in building the Illinois Central Railroad in the 1850s, German and Irish immigrants were the principal workforce, not migrating easterners or southerners. The overall accounts are solid; it is in the details where the authors can stray. The authors’ claim that the Thirteenth Amendment “did not actually make anyone free” is only true in the sense that the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which stemmed from that amendment, did. In terms of overview, the work suffers from not discussing the lives of the Algonquin-speaking people of Illinois, outside of their violent conflicts with Americans pushing north of the Ohio.Illinois Trails & Traces is a fine guide on how to think about local places. The numerous places cited are organized not just geographically and temporally; many are listed as sets of place names, such as names from Algonquin predecessors, names that show ethnic origin, and names from railroad or canal promoters. Local historians will benefit from studying how such places appear in these sets. They will also benefit from thinking about how the authors look at roads. Is the nearby highway an older trail? Is the meandering old road a relic of an earlier function? The authors caused me to think of my own McLean County. While reading, I was reminded that Springfield Road did indeed lead to Springfield, and Dameron Road is an alignment of the Old Chicago Cattle Trail. Likewise, town and place names provide glimpses of the past origins, ambitions, and humor of our predecessors.The book is good for winter reading while thinking about spring drives. Local museums should carry it in their gift shops and should give it as a reward to their best volunteers. Small town libraries will also find that their patrons will enjoy a celebration and observance of small places of note

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