All History & Culture Tour in United States

The Canton Area Heritage Center provides a place to showcase artifacts and to capture Canton’s compelling history of 190 years. The Heritage Center Museum focuses on the industries that have been established in Canton, over time. Read more...

An officially designated “Important Birding Area” (IBA), and purchased in the 1980’s by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, this 4,363-acre complex of freshwater marshes, shallow lakes, and deepwater habitat, boasts over 100 individual bodies of water which offer some of Illinois’ most sought after fishing. During hunting seasons Banner Marsh is a very popular place with Illinois outdoorsmen. Diverse Read more...

One of the major on-site archeological museums in the country, Dickson Mounds Museum also interprets the ecology of the Illinois River’s Emiquon region. The site itself lies where two major ecosystems meet: The Upper Mississippi River-Illinois River Bottomlands, and the Western Forest-Prairie complex. Turning onto the museum’s entry road, it’s easy to visualize this natural division, with the bottomlands situated Read more...

Graced with attractions and venues for people of all ages and all walks of life, the Peoria RiverFront District has cultural, entertainment, dining, antiquing, residential, historical and recreational activities. It is home to many popular public festivals and fairs, including the Peoria Art Guild’s Fine Arts Fair – one of the top 100 art fairs in the country. With its Read more...

Visit the new Peoria Riverfront Museum’s world-class facility on Peoria’s beautiful downtown riverfront. High-quality informative and interactive exhibits, all within view of the majestic Illinois River. Hear fascinating true tales or make your own history in The Street, an ever changing Peoria regional history gallery. Explore the Illinois River, from the critters who live there to the locks and dams Read more...

Located at the Starved Rock Lock & Dam, the Illinois Waterway Visitors Center is owned and operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps maintains the lock and dam system along the entire Illinois Waterway from Lake Michigan to Grafton, IL where the Illinois River empties into the Mississippi River. The water system conducts river traffic along 333 Read more...

French explorer/cartographer Louis Jolliet first suggested the construction of a canal connecting Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River (via the Illinois River) in 1673, but it wasn’t until 1836 that construction actually began. The canal, measuring 96 miles long by 60 feet wide by six feet deep, was completed in 1848, instantly allowing boat travel from Chicago to reach the Read more...

Named the World’s Most Beautiful Drive” by Theodore Roosevelt when he visited Peoria on October 10 Read more...

The Hennepin Canal was originally conceived in 1890 as part of an overall plan to connect the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico in order to facilitate barge shipping. The problem was that by the time the canal was finished 17 years later, a combination of decreasing railway shipping rates and increasing barge sizes had already rendered the narrow Read more...

Bordered by the east bank of the Illinois River this linear park possesses an ample walking trail shaded by the park’s large riparian trees. On the park’s bluff (at the terminus of Main Street) is an observation deck and raised boardwalk nestled in a grove of American elm, red maple, mulberry, northern catalpa, and black locust trees. Havana’s Riverfront Park Read more...

Fifteen centuries ago, melt-waters from the last Ice Age deposited vast amounts of sand along the Illinois River valley, which have since been sculpted into massive dunes. Following glaciation, there was a 1000 year drought and Southwestern species migrated in, including prickly pear cactus! The 7,500-acre Sand Ridge State Forest dunes are clothed with dry-mesic oak-hickory forest and pocked with Read more...

Starved Rock is one of the premier natural areas in the Midwest. There are 18 canyons cut by melting glaciers at the end of the ice age. They sparkle seasonally with waterfalls or ice falls. Fifteen miles of trails traverse old growth forests and sandstone bluffs with an amazing diversity of trees and wildflowers. The Illinois Audubon Society was instrumental Read more...

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has embarked on one of the largest wetland restoration projects in the U.S. Beneath the nearly 7,000 acres of plowed cropland was a dormant seed bank of prairie, hardwood forest, and aquatic plants just waiting for a chance to emerge. The newly built boat ramp, board walks, hiking and canoe trails were designed to attract visitors Read more...

Fort Crevecoeur Park commemorates French explorer Robert Rene Cavalier de LaSalle’s presence here on the east bank of the Illinois River in 1680. The fort was built to protect the Illini Indians from the aggressive Iroquois Nation. The 86.6-acre park was deeded to the village of Creve Coeur in 1976 and leased to the non-profit organization, Fort Crevecoeur, Inc. The Read more...