Join the Illinois State Historical Society’s southern Illinois tour Oct. 14-16 to visit historic sites, natural areas and the beautiful Shawnee National Forest with its bluffs, canyons, boulders and towering trees that will be alive with fall color. Board the bus in Springfield and travel to Shawneetown, Elizabethtown, Golconda and more. Experience the Ohio River, walk trails, visit a pioneer village, see the former site of a Black school, enjoy popular restaurants and stay in a riverside hotel.
David Joens, interim director of ISHS says, “Southeast Illinois is one of the hidden gems of this state. This area has a rich and diverse history and amazing geography and scenery. One of the highlights of this trip is that it will also focus on the archaeological past of the region, something often ignored when discussing the history of Illinois.”
Mark Motsinger, president of the Saline County Historical Society, will serve as the tour guide.
With Chicago the largest city in Illinois, it is hard to believe that it once was only a blip on the map. Shawneetown was the largest city as well as the financial capital of the state. Today, it is nearly a ghost town.
It was here, in 1816, that John Marshall opened the first bank in his home. By 1830 riverboats and barges brought needed supplies to residents. Businesses sprang up, business owners built fancy homes and the town prospered. It was so prosperous and so well-known for its banking that it is said that in 1830 Chicago city planners requested a $10,000 loan from the Shawneetown bankers to get Chicago started – although some historians doubt the story. According to the legend, the bankers refused to grant a loan, saying the chances of making Chicago into a lucrative city were slim.
Shawneetown was once the largest city in Illinois as well as the financial capital of the state. Two of its original banks still exist and will be open for the tour group.
Two of the original banks still exist and will be open for the tour group.
Floods often threatened Shawneetown. Two – in 1813 and 1815 – destroyed part of the settlement. The worst flood came in 1937, forcing residents to move further inland to form New Shawneetown. “The Shawneetown Flood,” a ballad from 1937, says, “On it came with mighty force, spoiling all within the course…where once was a happy city, wreck appeared.”
Readers of Mark Twain may never have met wily Tom Sawyer if it hadn’t been for Shawneetown. While working on a riverboat, Twain often stopped at the town and on one visit met Thomas Sawyer Spivey; Twain later shortened Spivey’s name to create his well-known character.
Another stop will be in Equality, Illinois, where equality never existed. Salt mine owner John Hart Crenshaw caged slaves in his mansion Hickory Hill, known as the Old Slave House. Crenshaw’s mines produced 500 bushels of salt a day from 1840-1875. Because it was difficult to hire laborers, the government allowed mine owners to lease slaves from slave territory and to bring them to Illinois. Crenshaw, it is believed, may have kidnapped freed slaves, used them in his mines, and sold them back to owners. In 1842, Crenshaw was tried but acquitted of illegal slave traffic charges.
The top floor of the house shows disturbing evidence of the conditions that must have existed. A center hallway is flanked by rooms with no light or ventilation; there is a whipping post and visible outlines of locks on each room.
The group will visit Golconda’s historic museum and nearby path of the Trail of Tears, and Elizabethtown, site of the famous Rose Hotel. When riverboats and steamboats, named Wonderland, Cottonblossom or New Sensation, tied up at the dock, the whistle of the steam calliope announced their arrival, and a band marched through Elizabethtown. A circus boat, called The Floating Palace, filled with lions, tigers, elephants and circus performers, was a common sight on the river. In Elizabethtown, participants will dine at the floating Fish Dock River Restaurant.
The route through the area sometimes hugs the river or winds through lush vegetation. Several natural areas will be on the tour. Participants can choose to walk trails to see ancient indigenous fort walls – a short walk to Rim Rock, or a more adventurous walk to Mill Stone Bluff.
Another stop will be Cave-in-Rock, once home to pirates and outlaws. In 1797 Samuel Mason Wilson brought his band of robbers and counterfeiters here. Between 1798 and 1799 the Harpe Brothers hid out after escaping from Kentucky, where they were wanted for murder. Their brutal killings were well-known in the area; travelers feared meeting up with the deadly Harpes who allegedly cut open a victim’s body, filled it with stones and then dumped it into the river. Counterfeiters ran their operations here in 1831, and during the 1830s river pirates brought victims into the cave to kill them.
The tour will include the Pine Creek Pioneer Village in Harrisburg, which depicts life from 1800 to 1840 with a blockhouse, Quaker church, post office, school, jail and barn with threshing floor. A stop in Eldorado will share the story of the Tuskegee model school for African American youth, built by Jefferson Douglas Alston. The school was later burned.
Poet Edgar Lee Masters called southern Illinois “peaceful and primitive like an etching study.” His poem Illinois Ozarks describes the area as “ridges of woodland toward the horizon space, the pastoral silence where the West commences; dotted by log cabins, lined with rail fences, which change and passing years do not displace; the past still lingers here….”
You, too, can linger here and discover Illinois’ varied past.
The cost is $576 for ISHS members or $656 for non-members. The fee includes motorcoach transportation, two nights at San Damiano Lodge, admission and speaker fees, gratuities, two breakfasts, three lunches and one dinner (one dinner on your own).
Reservations and payment are due by Sept 4. Contact Judy Wagenblast at jwagenblastp@gmail.com,
217-725-3075.
This article appears in August 20-26, 2026.
