The Great Sauk Trail

This east-west road crossing Route 78 is one of the few intact segments of the Great Sauk Trail from the Mississippi River to Lake Erie. Buffalo blazed it along this glacial moraine thousands of years ago as they traveled around Lake Wenno, meaning "place of abundant game," on their way to eastern grasslands. Many prehistoric and historic villages and campsites dotted the trail area here because it was one of the best hunting areas in North America. The glacial lake gradually dried up, leaving the Great Willow Swamp, which extended about 600 square miles, and its remnants were finally tiled and drained in the early 1900s. While tilling and settling the land, early farmers and their descendants uncovered hundreds of ancient artifacts and other evidence of these early residents of Kewanee Township. Settlers named the trail for the Sauks, who still used it regularly to collect annuities from the British at Malden, Canada, for fighting in the War of 1812. The Illinois, Mesquawki, Winnebago, and Potawatomi also used the trail. It then became the first stagecoach road to pass through the area, and was used by Forty-Niners and settlers in Conestoga wagons until about 1900. Today, visitors can still travel this trail through Kewanee Township and on through Neponset Township of Bureau County.

Illinois · United States