Nature
Hanging Rock is a striking sandstone overhang on the Wabash River near Mount Carmel, Illinois, formed by glacial reshaping and rising more than 100 feet above the water at its central pinnacle. Long before European-American settlement, Native Americans used the site and nearby area as a campground, built mounds there, and at one time a village of about 40 Oujatanon wigwams reportedly stood nearby; later the Piankashaw settled there after the French arrived. In the 19th century it became a steamboat loading point, was later promoted as a tourist destination, and gave its name to a local sandstone in 1875, linking the site to Indigenous history, river trade, tourism, and geology.
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Illinois · United States