Calhoun County, reached by the Brussels Ferry across the Illinois River, has long been shaped by its river setting, fertile landscape, and geographic isolation between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. Native Americans first inhabited the Illinois River Valley thousands of years ago, and the Koster site preserves 10,000 years of human occupation dating to the Early Archaic era from 6400 to 3900 B.C. Excavations by the Center for American Archeology and Northwestern University in the 1970s revealed the lifeways of prehistoric people and communities. The first permanent European settler was a French trapper named O'Neall, who settled in Point Precinct in 1801 and lived in a cave until his death in 1842. After the War of 1812, the government set aside the land between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers for veterans, and many sold their land to speculators. A rush of settlers, mostly German immigrants, arrived in 1823 in what was then Pike County, and when the county was divided in 1825, the southern portion was named Calhoun for Vice President John Caldwell Calhoun. Lumbering was the county's earliest industry, followed by farms and orchards, and by 1875 orchards had become a very important source of income that continues today, aided by hills, bluffs, and river valleys that moderate the climate and protect orchards from drastic temperature changes. In 2008, community members created the Barn Quilt Tour, with more than 85 quilt blocks painted on barns as a tribute to the county's agricultural and rural heritage and to the men and women who settled the county. River access was one of the primary reasons for laying out and settling towns along the Meeting of the Great Rivers National Scenic Byway, and ferries were long critical to trade and access in this peninsula county. During the height of river commerce there were many competing ferries; today three ferries and one bridge connect the county, including the Joe Page Lift Bridge in Hardin, built in 1930, and the state-owned Brussels Ferry. The region is also known for wildlife and recreation along its bluffs, woodlands, and rivers. Bald eagles, once considered endangered, now return each winter, with hundreds migrating from late December through mid-February along the Mississippi Flyway to nests on the bluffs. The Two Rivers National Wildlife Refuge, encompassing 8,501 acres of bottomland forests, lakes, sloughs, and floodplain habitats, protects river ecosystems and serves as a major migration corridor and resting, feeding, and wintering area for waterfowl and other birds.