Located in the bend of the Mississippi River, Alton is one of the most interesting cities in downstate Illinois. It is intersected by multiple themes of historic interest: Native Americans, Lewis & Clark, the slavery debate, the Underground Railroad, freedom of the press, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, African American equality, and the industrial management of the great river itself. These aspects of American history are manifested at so many visitable sites that Alton can function as a stand-alone attraction.
Alton is larger (population 25,000) than any other town studied by our project – a small city with a complement of tourism infrastructure (hotels, restaurants). Not to mention – beyond our project’s concern – that Alton is very pretty – often called San Francisco on the Mississippi – with three neighborhoods inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places. There also is nearby Elsah, the entire village being NRHP-designated and crowned by beautiful Principia College, itself a National Historic Landmark with its Maybeck architecture.
Alton benefits from being the headquarters of the major downstate tourism bureau, Great Rivers & Routes. Our contribution has been to balance that agency’s emphasis on recreational and events tourism with our focus on Alton’s underdeveloped (under-promoted, inadequately known) cultural/historic/heritage tourism. Alton is a truly worthy destination that can easily occupy the visitor for a full three days. A walk through Alton is a journey through some of America’s most important history.
EARLY ALTON: ORIGINS AND COMMERCE
Alton originated as a river town in 1817-1818 and, predictably, was a commercial center because of its location on the Mississippi River at the confluence of the Illinois and Missouri Rivers. Moreover, it is effectively at the geographic center of the Mississippi River, between the Minnesota headwaters and the mouth near New Orleans.
It takes little imagination to envision commercial shipping on the river in Alton’s 19th century heyday. Indeed, in the 1830s Alton was the largest city in Illinois. In addition to freight, steamboats carried passengers. One easily recalls Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi and Edna Ferber’s Showboat.
Alton was overtaken by St. Louis. Nevertheless, Alton prospered as hundreds of steamboats traveled the Mississippi. For decades rivers were faster and more efficient than railroads for bulk cargo (and for soldiers during the Civil War). But in the latter part of the 19th century railroads surpassed the steamers. These railroads further supported Alton’s industrialization.
Over the later 19th century and into the 20th century Alton’s commerce included grain storage and transport, brick production, steel manufacturing, glass bottling and cardboard box manufacture. Evidence of some of this vibrant economy can still be seen in the many brick-paved streets of Alton and the gigantic Ardent Mills grain silos along the waterfront, which are the most iconic landmark of the city. (That relationship to the Mississippi River was severely challenged during the June 2019 flood, one of many such dramatic events).
Moreover, Alton’s vibrant commercial economy created immense wealth for some inhabitants, as seen in the beautiful Federal, Italianate, Queen Anne and Victorian homes on steep streets that rise up from the river.
ABOLITIONISTS
Illinois was (ostensibly) a free state across the river from the slave state of Missouri. Although some members of Alton society were pro-slavery, there was a group of dedicated individuals against that institution. Alton was a major abolitionist center in the decades before the Civil War. Elijah Lovejoy was martyred here for his anti-slavery advocacy. Alton played a major role in the Underground Railroad (and the adjacent town of Godfrey where Rocky Fork is located). Alton was the site of the final Lincoln-Douglas debate.
Elijah Lovejoy was the most famed abolitionists in the Alton area for his persistent, but ultimately fatal, efforts in the anti-slavery movement. Lovejoy was publishing anti-slavery treatises in St. Louis but was forced across the river in 1836 because of his abolitionist work. He re-settled in Alton to set up his newspaper, the Alton Observer. His printing press was almost immediately thrown into the river by a pro-slavery mob, as were his second and third presses. 
Lovejoy persisted. But on the night of November 7, 1837 a pro-slavery mob descended on the warehouse where Lovejoy and his supporters were protecting the fourth press. Lovejoy was fatally shot by one of them and the mob threw the press into the Mississippi River.
Lovejoy is widely regarded as the first martyr of the abolition movement. He is simultaneously a hero for the concept of a free press.
Elijah Lovejoy was buried on November 9 in the Alton City Cemetery in an unmarked grave because of the hostility toward him in much of the local populace. Twenty-seven years later Lovejoy was reburied with an enhanced physical marker (the marble scroll and granite block on which it rests – see photos below). The constant care for the protection and respect of Lovejoy’s grave has remained with a group of African American citizens constituting the Elijah P. Lovejoy Memorial Board.
Lovejoy’s printing press was discovered in and recovered from the Mississippi River in 1915 by personnel from the Sparks Milling Company, now the site of Ardent Mills. It had pride of place in the offices of the Alton Telegraph for eighty years before being donated to the Hayner Public Library in 2018 where it stands today inside the entrance (401 State Street). Please watch this video that includes an actor portraying Elijah Lovejoy: CLICK HERE.
In 1897 a grand monument to Elijah Lovejoy was erected at the top of a hill (Fifth Street and Monument Avenue – today, the summit of the Alton National Cemetery), with a commanding view of the Mississippi River. It is comprised of a 93-ft tall column surmounted by a 17-ft tall winged Figure of Victory. 
Three statements made by Lovejoy were placed as inscriptions at the base of the column and express Lovejoy’s understanding of his action:
freedom of speech:
But, gentlemen, as long as I am an American citizen, and as long as American blood runs in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, to publish whatever I please on any subject–being amenable to the laws of my country for the same.
religious justification for his opposition to slavery:
I have sworn eternal opposition to slavery, and by the blessing of God, I will never go back.
steadfastness in the face of perceived lethal danger:
If the laws of my country fail to protect me I appeal to God, and with him I cheerfully rest my cause. I can die at my post but I cannot desert it.
Elijah’s brother, Owen Lovejoy, was also a fierce abolitionist and lived on to fight against the institution of slavery at home and in the halls of Congress. The Owen Lovejoy homestead in Princeton, IL is now a National Historic Landmark, in recognition of the significant activities carried out by the Lovejoy brothers, and the site’s importance as a safe haven.
Watch our interview with Lacy McDonald in which she explains the history and significance of Elijah Lovejoy and moves up in time to consider the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate at Alton and Alton’s Civil War history: CLICK HERE.
Pegasus Books, 2021
EVIDENCE OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
We are thrilled to present the project’s film about the Underground Railroad, featuring Dr. Eric Robinson. Click here
We also are pleased to present this lecture by Dr. Eric Robinson, an expert in the Alton area Underground Railroad. Click here. Dr. Robison was a Professor of History at University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St Louis for many years. This lecture was filmed (February 26, 2021) by the Lewis & Clark Community College in Alton in association with its Black Student Union in celebration of Black History Month. The lecture is used with permission.
See also these two UGRR (Underground Railroad) interviews with Dr. Robinson, used with permission:
St Louis TV City Corner program (February 2021): CLICK HERE
St Louis Public Radio – St Louis On The Air (February 21, 2020) – audio is embedded in the webpage: CLICK HERE
At least eight Underground Railroad sites are in the Alton area. Some abolitionists created tunnels under their homes that became stops on the Underground Railroad, aiding escaping slaves to get to freedom further north. The Enos Apartments (325 E. 3rdStreet) were a stop (a safe house) on the Underground Railroad. The Rocky Fork area, between Alton and Godfrey, was a major station on the Underground Railroad.
Great Rivers & Routes has published an interesting story about the role of Godfrey and Alton in the Underground Railroad: CLICK HERE
Stephanie Young at Principia College in Elsah, just outside Alton, has produced a major podcast series (All Town USA) about Alton, two of whose episodes deal directly with the Underground Railroad: Episode 1 and Episode 3. We recommend these highly. CLICK HERE
The Alton Museum of History and Art (2809 College Ave – Loomis Hall) also has a small exhibit about the UGRR.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN ALTON
(1) Ryder Building: when Lincoln was an attorney
Lincoln the lawyer was peripatetic, traveling widely across the state. In Alton he visited clients many times. The Ryder Building was the courthouse where Lincoln practiced. We know that he delivered a speech there in support of the Whig Party candidate, William Henry Harrison. And the Ryder Building may have been the site of the Lovejoy murder trial (which did not result in any conviction). 31 East Broadway.
(2) The Franklin House –> Lincoln Hotel –> Lincoln Lofts
Abraham Lincoln ate and stayed overnight (October 14, 1858) here before his debate with Stephen Douglas the next day. At the time, the Franklin House was one of the largest and finest hotels in Alton. 208 State Street.
(3) The Seventh (Final) Lincoln-Douglas Debate: Lincoln-Douglas Square
A sculptural ensemble stands on this spot where, on October 15, 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas engaged in the last of their debates before the Illinois election for the U.S. Senate. Spectators to the debate arrived by steamboat and train from all over Illinois as well as from slave-holding Missouri to witness the event. The bronze statues of a speaking Douglas and pensive Lincoln were unveiled in 1995. They are accompanied by a series of explanatory placards around the square. Distinguished Lincoln historian, Professor Graham Peck at UIS, has produced (with Nathan Peck) a unique and provocative film about the debates in their era, called “Lincoln and Douglas: Touring Illinois in Turbulent Times” (2021). It is embedded in his website and is highly recommended: CLICK HERE.
A fascinating new book about Lincoln in Alton was published by author Tom Emery (2021).
History in Print, 337 E. Second South, Carlinville, IL 62626
EVIDENCE OF THE CIVIL WAR IN ALTON
Alton has significant physical evidence of the Civil War.
1) Corner wall of the military prison. This is the only wall section that remains of the first penitentiary built in Illinois, 1833. Located on the 200 block of William Street, by 1857 there were 256 cells for inmates. Conditions even at that time were considered so deplorable that prisoners were moved to Joliet. But in 1862, during the Civil War, the jail re-opened to hold Confederate soldiers and thus it became a military prison. The corner portion (RIGHT) 
of an original cell block (BELOW) is on the National Register of Historic Places.
(1870 photo in The Alton Telegraph)
Watch this little video produced by Great Rivers & Routes (on Facebook) about the Confederate Prison: CLICK HERE.
2) Alton National Cemetery. The cemetery was started to accommodate the Union dead. It is one of 14 Civil War military burial grounds that were authorized in 1862 as the death toll mounted. At the end of the civil war there were 151 marked graves here, and 12 for the unknown. As is ubiquitous at all military cemeteries, this one is characterized by row upon row of evenly ordered, identically sized markers. The cemetery was inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. It is located at 600 Pearl Steet.
3) North Alton Confederate Cemetery. A Confederate mass grave was created on the north side of Alton. It holds the dead soldiers from the military prison. Conditions were deplorable, worsened by a smallpox epidemic (see below). 1,354 Confederate soldiers died (some sources say 1,364 dead). Although the dead rest unmarked below the rolling lawn, a 57-ft tall stone obelisk, completed in 1909, has bronze plaques on all four sides on which the names and units of the deceased are recorded. It is located in a quiet neighborhood on Rozier Street.
4) Smallpox Island. A breathtaking drive across spectacular Clark Bridge, spanning the Mississippi River, takes the visitor to “Smallpox Island”, technically in Missouri today because of the shift in the course of the MIssissippi River, but in its time part of Illinois. It is accessed from Alton and Alton’s built shoreline is readily visible from this historic site.
Smallpox Island is so-named because of its use during the Civil War. The following history is compiled from texts inscribed on the memorial.
The Alton Prison was originally opened in 1838 as the first Illinois state penitentiary. It remained in service until 1860 when a new facility was built in Joliet. On February 9, 1862 the vacant structure reopened as the Alton Federal Military Prison. During the next three years, at least 11,764 Confederate soldiers were held in this facility. By all objective accounts conditions in the prison were substandard. The mortality rate was high. Hot, humid summers and cold, damp winters undoubtedly contributed to the high death rate. Overcrowding, inadequate food and clothing, and unsanitary conditions further compounded the prisoners’ misery. Pneumonia and dysentery were common killers, but contagious diseases like smallpox and rubella were the most feared. The smallpox epidemic that began in late 1862 ultimately prompted prison officials to transfer the contagious prisoners to a temporary quarantine facility, a safe distance from civilian residents of Alton. That temporary quarantine facility was the site now known as Smallpox Island.
The four-sided squat obelisk-shaped memorial on Smallpox Island lists the name of the officers, enlisted men and conscripts of the armies of the Confederate States of America who died of smallpox near this site between August 1, 1863 and March 31, 1865. Each of these soldiers had contracted the disease while being held as prisoners of war at the Federal Military Prison in Alton. Once infected with this highly contagious disease, prisoners were transported to a temporary hospital located on a small island. The hospital was located immediately upstream of this monument. In the hospital each of these men stoically succumbed to the effects of the disease. For seventy years following the “War Between The States” the precise location of these soldiers’ graves was unknown. Then, in 1935, a portion of the cemetery was inadvertently discovered during construction of the original Locks and Dam 26. Today, the remains of these southern patriots rest beneath the regulation pool of the Melvin Price Locks and Dam. This monument is dedicated to their sacrifice and memory.
The memorial also commemorates 16 civilians who fell victim to this epidemic and were buried on the island. One of them is a woman. None of these victims appears related by lineal kinship (i.e., brothers, fathers and sons). Nine are from Missouri. One is from Texas. One is from Arkansas. Three are from Tennessee. One is from Chicago. One has no provenience.
FIVE PLACES IN ALTON THAT ILLUSTRATE THE STRUGGLE FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN EQUALITY
(1) Lyman Trumbull From 1849-1863 Alton was the home of Lyman Trumbull. He was an Illinois Secretary of State, an Illinois Supreme Court Justice, a U.S. Senator (beginning in 1855) and a close associate of Abraham Lincoln and supporter for the Union cause. As Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Trumbull was the co-author of 13thAmendment of the United States Constitution, which permanently abolished slavery. He further co-authored the 14th and 15th Amendments (citizenry and voting rights, applied to African Americans) and the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
Trumbull’s house (1105 Henry Street) is a National Historic Landmark, which is the most prestigious designation a building can receive in the United States. While the house is lovely, it is the exceptional achievement of its owner that justifies the honor.
(2) Scott Bibb Historic Marker (located at the Scott Bibb Center of Lewis & Clark Community College. 1004 E. 5th St.)
A historic marker unveiled on June 19, 2017 reads:
“SCOTT BIBB (1855-1909). Scott Bibb was the plaintiff in the Alton School Case, a series of lawsuits that sought to retain Alton’s desegregated schools, which had existed in Alton from 1872 to 1897, a short-lived outcome of the Reconstruction Era. When Alton city officials re-established segregated schools in the fall of 1897, the African–American community resisted en masse. Bibb brought suit in The People of the State of Illinois, ex-rel. Scott Bibb vs. The Mayor and Common Council of the City of Alton. Over the next 11 years the lawsuit was appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court 5 times. In 1908 the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bibb, but Alton failed to implement the orders of the court, denying African-American students access to white schools. It would take another 50 years before the education system in that city would be desegregated again.” We consider the Scott Bibb case further in our lesson plan (Historical Documents as Rhetorial Texts) about critically reading historical texts, developed for high school students. “History on Trial: The Alton School Cases” is a fascinating dramatic play that enacts the trials and appeals from 1897-1908. The play was performed at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum on April 21, 2015.
(3) A possible connection with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The United States has a tragic history of political assassination. 1968 was a particularly grim year with the murders of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (brother of the previously assassinated president, John F. Kennedy) and of the great civil rights leader, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Alton has a connection to the assassination of Dr. King. The official government investigation of the MLK assassination concluded that some money from the heist at the Bank of Alton (corner of Washington and Edwards in Upper Alton) on July 13, 1967 was used by its perpetrator James Earl Ray to finance his travel across country to murder Dr. King on April 4, 1968. The official record (U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations report) states this correctly and definitively. An unofficial website furthermore states that some of the bank money was specifically used to purchase the fatal 30.06 Remington Gamemaster hunting rifle that killed King. It is important to state here that Helaine Silverman’s article in the January-February 2024 issue of Illinois Heritage (“Always Alton. Branding History as a Tourism Attractor”) contains a common error in this regard. Relying on statements of several local people with whom she spoke, Professor Silverman incorrectly identified “The Wedge” (see below) as the Bank of Alton that was held up by Ray. Historian J. Eric Robinson caught this error after publication. He says that the error of identification is due to a common confusion in Alton.
“The Wedge” was the Alton Banking and Trust building. It was not the Bank of Alton that Ray robbed. “The Wedge” is popularly known as such because of its shape. It is long abandoned. There has been a discussion among civic leaders in Alton to rehab it and transform it into a multi-purpose cultural center for Alton residents or a tech and business incubator. On architectural grounds, we very much hope this building can be saved.
(4) Mexico is a vibrant African American neighborhood. Please listen to Stephanie Young‘s podcast, All Town USA, Episode 5/Parts 1 and 2, to learn about Mexico: CLICK HERE
(5) Hayner Public Library (https://www.haynerlibrary.org/)
The library has an excellent local history and genealogy reference room as well as a series of expertly curated museum display cases containing historic artifacts, documents and photographs about Alton’s history, including its African American history.
_____________________________________________________
An extraordinary resource for all things Alton is the multi-segment podcast of Stephanie Young (Principia College, Elsah), cleverly called All Town, USA. Please listen to the episodes at this link, including the “Special Edition” (Episode 8) dealing with the racial disparity evident in the January 6, 2021 insurrection, as seen through the perspective of four Black Americans from Alton. https://alltownusa.org
We are pleased to work in Alton through our collaboration with Alton Works, Great Rivers & Routes DMO, Alton Main Street and the Hayner Public Library.
