Buffalo Rock, Illinois

City: Buffalo Rock

County: La Salle

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 41.3269, -88.9097

Buffalo Rock is a two mile long rock bluff of St. Peter’s sandstone on the north side of the Illinois River in La Salle County, located about four miles south of Ottawa. At one time it was an island in the Illinois River. When French people came to the region in the 1680s, it was populated by Native Americans. About 1685 a joint French and Native fortification was built at Buffalo Rock which became known as Le Fort des Miamis. Native peoples continued to live at the fort into the eighteenth century.

Elmer Baldwin, History of La Salle County Illinois (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1877), 12; The Past and Present of La Salle County, Illinois (Chicago: H. F. Kett, 1877), 175, 230; N. Matson, French and Indians of Illinois River (Princeton, IL: Republican Job Printing, 1874), 86, 110.