Illinois History Minutes

It’s April 28th, and on this day in 1941, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Illinois Congressman Arthur Mitchell, in a case involving Jim Crow laws and interstate travel.

It’s April 27th, the day in 1790 that St. Clair County was organized in what was then the Northwest Territory of the United States. The county originally took up most of present-day Illinois. After Illinois became a state, a much smaller St. Clair County became one of its first organized counties. Today, it’s part of the Metro East suburbs of St. Louis, and includes the cities of East St. Louis and Belleville.

It’s April 26th, the day that Quad Cities settler David Benton Sears was born in New York State in 1804. Sears is considered the founder of Moline, which is one of the Illinois Quad Cities. He came to the area in 1837, after the Sauk and Fox tribes had been forced out in the Black Hawk war.

It’s April 25th, and ports on the Lake Michigan shore in Chicago and Waukegan owe much of their traffic to the Saint Lawrence Seaway, which opened on this day in 1959. The seaway uses locks, canals, and channels to create a shipping route along the St. Lawrence River between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes. 

It’s April 22nd, Earth Day, a day to raise awareness about environmental concerns. The first Earth Day in 1970 was marked by a rally around the Picasso sculpture at Chicago’s Civic Center Plaza. The Chicago Tribune reports that the crowd departed with not one single piece of litter left behind.

It’s April 21st and the Illinois and Michigan Canal officially opened for business on this day in 1848. The canal carried commercial traffic for 96-miles between the Chicago and Illinois Rivers. It was a crucial link for river travel between the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes, until its closing in 1936.

It’s April 20th, the day that U-S Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens was born in Chicago in 1920. Stevens was a conservative Republican when President Gerald Ford nominated him for the high court in 1975. But he was considered to be on the liberal side of the Supreme Court when he retired nearly 35 years later.

It’s April 19th, and on this day in 1927, a tornado tore through Greene County and the little town of White Hall. At the Centerville Country School, teacher Annie Louise Keller ordered her sixteen students to get under their desks as the storm bore down on them.

It’s April 18th, and on this day in 1818, President James Monroe signed a bill into law enabling Illinois to become a state.

It’s April 15th, and on this day in 1955, a McDonald’s restaurant opened in Des Plaines. It was the first McDonald’s east of the Mississippi, and the first opened by Ray Kroc.