Illinois

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 40.0000, -89.0000

Congress created the state of Illinois on December 3, 1818, from the Illinois Territory. Its original capital was Kaskaskia but was quickly moved to Vandalia. In 1837, the capital relocated again, this time to Springfield. Abraham Lincoln made Illinois his home for most of his lifetime, moving there from Indiana in 1830 and leaving for Washington, DC, in 1861, to assume the presidency. Illinois was a free state and remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War.

"An Act to Enable the People of the Illinois Territory to Form a Constitution and State Government, and for the Admission of Such State into the Union on an Equal Footing with the Original States," 18 April 1818, Statutes at Large of the United States 3 (1846):428-31; "Resolution Declaring the Admission of the State of Illinois into the Union," 3 December 1818, Statutes at Large of the United States 3 (1846):536; Richard J. Jensen, Illinois: A History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), 47-56, 68-89; Douglas K. Meyer, Making the Heartland Quilt: A Geographical History of Settlement and Migration in Early-Nineteenth-Century Illinois (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), 1-41; Roger D. Bridges and Rodney O. Davis, Illinois: Its History & Legacy (St. Louis: River City, 1984), 3-60.