Cahokia Courthouse

Cahokia Courthouse is one of the region's oldest buildings and a rare remnant of the French occupation of the mid-Mississippi Valley. Built about 1740 as a dwelling, it became a courthouse in 1790 and for twenty-four years served as a center of judicial and political activity in the old Northwest Territory. Its post-on-sill, or poteaux-sur-solle, construction of upright hewn logs set in a horizontal sill log makes it an important example of French colonial-era timber building. The court at Cahokia, meeting quarterly, exercised jurisdiction over a vast territory that at one time reached to the Canadian border, hearing all civil and criminal cases, settling disputes, providing for orphans and the poor, and dispensing justice swiftly. After the St. Clair County seat moved to Belleville in 1814, the building was used as a town hall, a public school, a home again, and for a time a saloon. By the 1890s it was used to store farm machinery and seemed near collapse. Dismantled in 1901 and exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair, it was moved again in 1906 to Chicago, then finally returned to its original site as a W.P.A. project. Since its dedication in 1940 to the "splendid heritage" of the citizens of Illinois, the historic building has housed a public museum.

Cahokia Heights, Illinois · United States