Lewis & Clark Trip Day 6: Illinois (5/13/2021)

Thursday, May 13, 2021

Mistake #1: Not eating breakfast while still in Metropolis, IL.

Mistake #2: Thinking that taking roads with route numbers in southern rural Illinois would provide breakfast opportunities, but it only added an extra 20 miles.

Cairo, IL: Historic Customs House (1869-1872, by
Alfred B Mullet, in Italianate style)

Historic Customs House limestone marker
commemorating Seaman, the Newfoundland
dog of Meriwether Lewis, who traveled
with the Corps of Discovery

Historic Customs House granite marker commemorating
York, the slave of William Clark, who became an
important member of the Corps of Discovery Expedition

*On 11/14/1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark arrived in Cairo for six days of camping. During that time they observed the flora and fauna of the area, and reviewed celestial navigation and surveying skills with the team.*

Fort Defiance Park: Lewis & Clark Historical Marker

Fort Defiance Park Historical Survey
Marker identifying the site of the Lewis & Clark camp

Location of the Lewis & Clark camp in Cairo, IL is now
a distance from the mouth of the Ohio River due to 
changing river channels over time

The current location of the confluence of the Ohio River
(coming in from the L) and the smaller Mississippi River

Swallow nests under the River Merge Observation Deck

River navigational marker, the River Merge Observation Deck,
and a sculpture called Proceeding On (2005, by Evertt Beidler)

Now we will follow the Mississippi River northbound.

Finally found a breakfast (brunch by now) place
in Olive Branch, IL (we had a hearty breakfast!)

What's this? Home of Popeye?!

Chester, IL is the hometown of Elzie Crisler Segar,
a cartoonist whose comic strip Thimble Theatre
eventually had Popeye as the star

Statue (2006) of Wimpy (KSS)

Statue (2011) of Cole Oyl, Olive Oyl's father
in front of the Chester Public Library (1928)

Statue (2007) of Olive Oyl holding
Swee'Pea, with the dog, Jeep

Finally, Popeye (1977, in bronze)

Chester, IL: Lewis & Clark Historical Marker

Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and Tamiko (KSS)

*On 11/28/1803, Lewis & Clark stopped at Fort Kaskaskia to recruit more members for their Corps of Discovery.*

Fort Kaskaskia State Park: Remains of the 1759 fort

You can just about see the Mississippi River
(greenish-brown spot in the center of photo)
from the Fort Kaskaskia site

Cahokia, IL: Old Cahokia Court House (c 1740)
was used as headquarters for Lewis & Clark from
December 1803 until spring of 1804

The court house was dismantled in 1901 to be moved to St Louis for the 1904 World's Fair/Louisiana Purchase Exposition, then to Chicago in 1906. In 1939, the court house was returned and reconstructed on its original site.

The Old Cahokia Court House is unique
due to its vertical logs on a horizontal sill log,
an example of French colonial timber construction

Liriodendron tulipifera/American Tulip Tree
blossoms

Mistake #3: Taking a 5-mile hike at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site having had one meal and not bringing water, with the temperature in the 80s. (We are only allowed up to three mistakes per day!)

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site features the remains of
the largest prehistoric First Peoples (Mississippian culture) city
north of Mexico, with 100 platform, ridgetop, and conical mounds

Beginning to reconstruct a section of the palisade (KSS)

Twin Mounds, the largest of the paired mounds
with one conical (#59) and one platform (#60) mound;
the platform mound is aligned with Woodhenge
so that the winter solstice sun rises above it

Deer relax at the edge of the woods, and
we saw and heard plenty of birds

Another pair of mounds (#68 and #67); the
platform mound may have had the "funeral home" on it
and the conical mound was the "cemetery"

Part of Woodhenge; sometime between 900 and 1100 BCE,
a perfect circle of wooden posts were installed,
starting with 24 posts, and over time increasing to 72 posts

The photo is lousy, but it includes about 23 posts that can be seen in this reconstruction of a celestial calendar marking equinox and solstice sunrises, as well as lunar cycles and perhaps movement of the constellations.

The gentle undulations of mounds might have inspired the
former US President to turn this historic site into a golf course

By the time we reached Monks Mound (#38),
there was no way we were going to climb those steps (KSS)

Monks Mound is the largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the Americas, at about 100'/30 m high, 955'/291 m long including the access ramp at the southern end, and 775'/236 m wide. The base is roughly the same size as the Great Pyramid of Giza (Egypt).

A mural in the interpretive center depicts
how the city may have looked

A finished section of stockade

Diorama showing that the area was wooded (KSS)

An explanation of the different types of mounds

Keller figurine of a female who may have been holding
a basket (arms are broken off); a fertility symbol (KSS)

The Lewis & Clark connection is this: Father Urbain Guillet, leader of a group of Trappist monks, had conferred with Meriwether Lewis, who was territorial governor of Missouri, about getting a federal land grant to establish a colony. However, they ended up settling at Cahokia Mounds. Then in 1809, Father Guillet baptized Jean Baptiste Touissant, the son of Sakakawea, in St Louis.

Parking lot suburb of purple martin gourd houses;
are those "antennae" to keep the owls away?

Malcolm W Martin Memorial Park has the Gateway Geyser,
the world's tallest fountain, but it operates only from
Memorial Day to Labor Day at certain hours;
the geyser shoots water to the same height as the Gateway Arch

We sit with Malcolm W Martin, who financed this park
in E St Louis, IL across from St Louis

Malcolm's view of the Gateway Arch across the
Mississippi River in St Louis, MO

Malcolm W Martin Memorial Park Observation Deck

Our hotel room view of the Gateway Arch at sunset

Next: Lewis & Clark Trip Day 7.