Lt. Col. Clark and his troop of 170 Virginians camped near here on July 2, 1778, their third campsite during a march from Fort Massac to Kaskaskia to capture that post from the British. Earlier that day, the troop was lost for a time on Phelp's Prairie. The next day, they would cross the Big Muddy River at Marshall's Ford. The Kaskaskia attack and a later one at Vincennes, Indiana, secured the Illinois Territory for the United States during the Revolutionary War.