Portal:Illinois

The Illinois Portal

Illinois (/ˌɪlɪˈnɔɪ/ ^ⓘ IL-ih-NOY) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash and Ohio rivers to its south. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-most land area. Its capital city is Springfield in the center of the state, and the state's largest city is Chicago in the northeast.

Present-day Illinois was inhabited by Indigenous cultures for thousands of years. The French were the first Europeans to arrive, settling near the Mississippi and Illinois rivers in the 17th century Illinois Country, as part of their sprawling colony of New France. A century later, the revolutionary war Illinois campaign prefigured American involvement in the region. Following U.S. independence in 1783, which made the Mississippi River the national boundary, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky via the Ohio River. Illinois was soon 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 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, Sweden and elsewhere.

In the mid-19th century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal and a sprawling railroad network facilitated trade, commerce, and settlement, making the state a transportation hub for the nation, especially in Chicago, which became the world's fastest growing city by the late 19th century. By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois became one of America's most industrialized states and remains a major manufacturing center. The Great Migration from the South established a large black community, particularly in Chicago, which became a leading cultural, economic, and population center; the Chicago metropolitan area holds about 65% of the state's 12.8 million residents.

Selected article

Uncle Tupelo was an alternative country music group from Belleville, Illinois, active between 1987 and 1994. Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn formed the band after the lead singer of their previous band, The Primitives, left to attend to college. The trio recorded three albums for Rockville Records, before signing with Sire Records and expanding to a five-piece. Shortly after the release of the band's major label debut album Anodyne, Farrar announced his decision to leave the band due to a soured relationship with his co-songwriter Tweedy. Uncle Tupelo split on May 1, 1994, after completing a farewell tour. Following the breakup, Farrar formed Son Volt, while the remaining members continued as Wilco.

Although Uncle Tupelo broke up before it achieved commercial success, the band is renowned for its impact on the alternative country music scene. The group's first album, No Depression, became a byword for the genre and influenced artists such as Whiskeytown. Uncle Tupelo's sound was unlike popular country music of the time, drawing inspiration from styles as diverse as the hardcore punk of The Minutemen and the country instrumentation and harmony of the Carter Family and Hank Williams. Farrar and Tweedy lyrics frequently referenced Middle America and the working class of Belleville. (Read more...)

Selected biography

Timothy Blackstone (March 28, 1829 – May 26, 1900) was a 19th-century railroad executive, businessman, philanthropist, and politician. Blackstone worked in the railroad industry for most of his life after dropping out of school. Blackstone served as president of the Chicago and Alton Railroad from 1864 through 1899, was a founding president of the Union Stock Yards, and served one term as mayor of La Salle, Illinois. An active philanthropist, Blackstone was the benefactor of the James Blackstone Memorial Library in Branford, Connecticut. A nearly identical library, Blackstone Memorial Library, was donated to the Chicago Public Library by Timothy Blackstone's widow in 1902. The Blackstones also funded Blackstone Hall for the Art Institute of Chicago Building. Chicago's Blackstone Library is the first dedicated branch of the Chicago Public Library system, and later his mansion became the site of the Blackstone Hotel and the Blackstone Theatre. (Read more...)

Did you know...

... that the Chicago River flows backwards?
... that students at Aptakisic Junior High School regularly complain of poor HVAC systems?
... 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"?
... that authorities said the killing of Wadea al-Fayoume in Illinois was a response to the 2023 Israel–Hamas war?

Archive

Selected images

Image 1The Twenty Acre Dairy Barn, first of the experimental University of Illinois round barns. The barn was designed by James M. White and Kell & Bernard for the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1908
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 2A 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 3A 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 4A 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 5The LaSalle Rail Bridge and Abraham Lincoln Memorial Bridge over the Illinois River. The LaSalle Bridge was built by the Illinois Central Railroad in 1893, and the Lincoln Bridge was built in 1987 with the construction of Interstate 39.
Image credit: Joseph Norton and Ronald Frazier (photographers), Alanscottwalker (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 6Photograph of Shoeless Joe Jackson, Black Betsy in hand, in 1913 with the Cleveland Naps, prior to his seasons with the Chicago White Sox.
Image credit: Charles M. Conlon (photographer), Mears Auctions (digital file), Scewing (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 7Vandalia State House, the former state capitol. It was built in 1836 and is maintained by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.
Photo credit: Art davis (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 8The 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 9"Let Go–But Stand By:" Photograph of Frances Willard from her 1895 book, A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle. The new safety bicycle became associated with women's emancipation.
Image credit: Frances E. Willard (book author), Woman's Temperance Publishing Association and Fleming H. Revell Co. (publishers), HathiTrust (digitization), Dennis Bratland (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 10A Canada goose (Branta canadensis) swimming in Palatine.
Photo credit: Joe Ravi (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 11Symbols 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 12"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 13A panoramic view of corn fields near Royal in Champaign County.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 14The 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 15The 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 16The Garden of the Gods in Shawnee National Forest. The unglaciated gray sandstone of the wilderness area is more rugged than most of Illinois.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 17The coat of arms of Illinois as illustrated in the 1876 book State Arms of the Union by Louis Prang.
Image credit: Henry Mitchell (illustrator), Louis Prang & Co. (lithographer and publisher), Godot13 (restoration) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 18Magnolia Manor in Cairo, built by businessman Charles A. Galigher in 1869.
Photo credit: MuZemike (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 19The 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 20A tiger swallowtail butterfly (Papilio glaucus) in Shawnee National Forest.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 21The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The building was designed by Charles B. Atwood for D. H. Burnham & Company to house exhibits for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
Image credit: zooey (photographer), Jasenlee~commonswiki (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 22The Old State Capitol in Springfield. Designed by John F. Rague in a Greek Revival style and completed in 1840, the building housed the Illinois General Assembly until 1876.
Photo credit: Agriculture (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 24The 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 25Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad 1926, a Railway Post Office preserved at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union.
Photo credit: Sean Lamb (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 26The 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 27Shore of Lake Michigan at Illinois Beach State Park in Lake County.
Image credit: Yinan Chen (photographer), Slick (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 28A flowstone formation inside Chimney Dome, part of Illinois Caverns in Monroe County. The cave is formed in limestone and dolomite by water dissolution and features stalactites, stalagmites, rimstone dams, flowstone, and soda straws.
Photo credit: A. Frierdich (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 29The Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, where Abraham Lincoln is buried alongside Mary Todd Lincoln and three of their sons. The tomb, designed by Larkin Goldsmith Mead, was completed in 1874.
Photo credit: David Jones (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 30A 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 31American 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 32Architectural details of Altgeld Hall at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Designed by UIUC professors Nathan Ricker and James McLaren White, the building is one of Altgeld's castles.
Image credit: Kevin Dooley (photographer), Smallbones (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 33the Purple Heart memorial in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois,
Image credit: PhilDaBirdMan (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 34Map of the Multilevel streets in Chicago.
Image credit: User:SPUI (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 35Marina 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 36A Howard bound Red Line train temporarily rerouted to elevated tracks at Randolph station, Chicago.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 37Lithograph 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 38A tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) in Urbana.
Image credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 39Chicago and North Western Railway locomotive shops in Chicago, December 1942.
Image credit: Jack Delano, Farm Security Administration (photographer); Library of Congress (digital file); Trialsanderrors and Yann (digital retouching) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 40Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield. The house was built for the Rev. Charles Dresser in 1839. Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln purchased it in 1844, later adding a second story.
Photo credit: Daniel Schwen (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 41Hohenbuehelia mastrucata mushroom growing in Busse Woods, Elk Grove Village.
Image credit: Rocky Houghtby (photographer), Leoboudv (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 42Chris Young winding 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 43Downtown Chicago and Lake Michigan (view from the Willis Tower).
Photo credit: Adrian104 (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 44Plants of the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in Will County. Tallgrass prairie once covered around two-thirds of Illinois. Midewin is the only federal tallgrass prairie preserve east of the Mississippi River.
Photo credit: User:Alanscottwalker (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 45Martyrdom 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 46Photograph of Rockford pilot Elizabeth L. Gardner with the WASPs at Harlingen Army Air Field, Texas.
Image credit: U.S. Dept. of the Air Force (photograph); National Archives Catalog (digital file); Junkyardsparkle, Hohum, Bammesk (digital retouching) (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 48An 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)
Image 49This 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 50The 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 51A illustration of the Upper Bluff Lake Dancing Figures repoussé copper plate, an artifact of the Mississippian culture found at the Saddle Site in Union County, Illinois.
Image credit: H. Rowe (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 52A view of Lake Falls in Matthiessen State Park in La Salle County near Oglesby. The park's stream begins with the Lake Falls and flows into the Vermillion River.
Photo credit: Cspayer (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 53The Cairo Mississippi River Bridge near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers at Cairo, the lowest elevation in the state. The bridge was built in 1929 by the American Bridge Company and the Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Co.
Image credit: Nick Jordan (photographer), Fredddie (upload) (from Portal:Illinois/Selected picture)
Image 54Photograph 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 55A 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 56"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)

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18 June 2026 –: The presidential library of former U.S. president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama opens in Chicago, Illinois, United States, with all living former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, and Obama in attendance. Incumbent president Donald Trump was not invited. (Axios) (The New York Times) (Reuters)

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