Peoria, Illinois

Peoria, Illinois, was named for the Peoria tribe of the Iliniwek Indian confederacy, who once lived there. In 1673, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet traveled through the widened portion of the Illinois River known as Lake Peoria, on which the city is situated. Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, assisted by Henri Tonti, built Fort Crévecoeur on the bluffs across the river from the present Peoria site in 1680, but Indian attacks led to its abandonment later that year. In 1691, Henri Tonti returned with Francois de La Forest and built Fort St. Louis on the banks where the river narrows, just south of Lake Peoria. Militia units from Illinois and Missouri erected Fort Clark in 1813 in the area that is now downtown Peoria. In 1825, Peoria became the seat of the newly created Peoria County, and in 1826 William S. Hamilton, son of Alexander Hamilton, surveyed and laid out the city. It was incorporated as a town in 1837 and as a city in 1844. At the Peoria Courthouse on October 16, 1854, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of his first speeches denouncing slavery in reply to Stephen A. Douglas, who had spoken on behalf of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Peoria's economy is broadly based in agri-business, manufacturing, distribution, and services, with heavy construction equipment, wire and wire products, medical services and research, marketing, and communications as major industries. Peoria is also home to Bradley University, a private co-educational institution founded in 1897 with a bequest from Lydia Moss Bradley.

Peoria, Illinois · United States