French Colonial Illinois — Fort de Chartres & the Bottomlands

Long before St. Louis existed, the fertile floodplain across the river known as the American Bottom was the heart of French colonial power in the Mississippi Valley — a chain of villages and forts that formed the pays des Illinois, New France's breadbasket. This two-day journey rediscovers that half-forgotten world. Day one explores Fort de Chartres, the massive stone fortress that anchored French authority on the frontier, and the sleepy village of Prairie du Rocher, one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in the Midwest, still ringing in the New Year with its centuries-old La Guiannée. Day two wanders the astonishing German stone hamlet of Maeystown, a nineteenth-century village preserved almost whole, and pays respects to the Liberty Bell of the West at Kaskaskia before the return. An overnight near Waterloo keeps the pastoral bottomlands close at hand.