This gallery talks about the river from both a historical perspective, and also about the river as a means of transportation and a big part of the economy. The gallery begins with a historical look at how the river was formed 15,000 years ago and about the people who lived here in prehistoric times. The kankakee torrent was a geological event 15,000 years ago. At the time, this was in a time of great glaciers. There was a glacier lake around what is now chicago and michigan. That glacial lake burst its dam. So most of the water would have come through the base or overthetop. And it rushed down the Illinois River valley, carving out a rock. Even people who are from illinois dont realize why there is a canyon like structure there. It was from the phenomenally powerful rush of glacial water coming down Central Illinois and carving out the canyons. The people who lived here, there are a number of different period we talk about. We talk about the paleo indians who lived here 12,000 years ago, and the archaic group. They were followed by the woodland indians. And the group that we are most known for here, the mississippian culture. They were here from 1000 years ago to 5000 years ago. You see a great representation here on the wall. This is the prf falcon the peoria falcon. It is a copper headdress about this large that was unearthed here when they were building along the river. There is a lot of speculation about what the falcon was for. But the best theory is that it was part of a headdress because of where it was found and the burial materials it was included in. Both the woodland indians and the mississippian culture where were wonderful farmers. And in order to make use of the crops that you cultivate, you have to be able to store them. That is where pottery comes into the picture. Both of those groups made wonderful pottery, a tradition that continues today. And you can see examples in the exhibit as well. What we are looking at here is a representation of the Illinois Waterway. Really steps in the river. From the elevation of Lake Michigan down to where it meets the Mississippi River, there is a 160 foot drop. In order to make it easier for large ships to travel to illinois, a series of locks were built in the 1900s. In the 1840 is, both peoria and chicago were growing cities. The population of chicago in the early 1840s was 20,000. Something would happen in illinois to change that dramatically. In 1848, the michiganillinois canal was built. And that connected the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan. After the illinois and michigan canal was open, the size of chicago more than tripled in one decade. Which is absolutely phenomenal. At the same time, telegraphs came to chicago, and the railroad, and that allowed peoria to grow as well. There was such demand for transportation that another system had to be developed. So an initiative was started just before the start of the 20th century to reverse the flow of the Chicago River. Unprecedented. And i dont think it would have happened except for a scare. You know how the public can be scared and that move things along. There were a lot of cholera and typhoid outbreaks in chicago because of sanitation problems. And the fear of another outbreak gave the project enough push to dam off the rivers. The Chicago River flowed into Lake Michigan, the Calumet River flooded to Lake Michigan, at a public ticking supply came from there. They reversed the flow and created the chicago sanitary and shipping for now. That connected Lake Michigan to the desk planes des plaines river. It sent all of the waste downriver. Unfortunately, it went to peoria as well. The Illinois Waterway wasnt really completed for another couple of decades. They needed to create these dams and locks to allow large ships to move with greater facility up and down the river. There are eight locks. The largest ones are near chicago and starved rock, where a single lock can have a drop of as much as 40 feet. As you get further down the river, the locks only bring you down another 10 feet. So every vote that leaves chicago on the way to the gulf of mexico will pass through as well. In the early 1900s, the Illinois River here was frequently used by paddleboat and steamboat for leisure trips around the area. At the base of main street, just one block north of us, we now have a wonderful park and in the early 1900s, it was a shallow bank into the river. And that is where these boats parked or docked. I dont know if you would say docked because they just ran up onto the sand. Ngplanksng thanks gamg[;aml came out of the bow onto the land. And that is how passengers came in and out. At any given time, there was a dozen of these boats at least, docked there at the base of main street. And this is a representation of the columbia, which was one of the boats. On july 5, 1918, the columbia met with disaster. It had been taking a group of people from a social club from pekin up to the heights, the alfresco park. And as they returned in the fog, they hit a tree stump, underwater. And the vessel sank. And there were almost 500 people on board the columbia that night and 87 lost their lives. And it was the worst boat disaster on the Illinois River. This is a replica of columbia made by a resident, and above it, you see part of the hull that was recovered. It has the ships name on it. In front of the model, it is a clock that was also recovered from the wreck. The rest of the ship is still at the bottom of the river. Right here, we are looking at sheet 39 of the navigational chart for the Illinois River. If you look carefully, in the middle of the river, you see what looks like a highway. And that is a highway for the illinois shipping canal. It is nine feet deep. It is maintained by the army corps of engineers. And it snakes through the river. And if you look outside the window at the end of the gallery and you see barges going along, they are always in the same spot. Right in the middle of the highway. It is an essential part of the economy, moving materials by barge is very economical compared to moving them by some eyes on the road. So this is a vital link in our economy. I think a lot of people take the Illinois River for granted. Even though we live along the banks and we enjoy the fruits of the river being here, both recreationally and from the economic importance to the region, but people dont really appreciate its integrated intricate history, the role it played in the unprecedented engineering feats of 1848. I dont think people really realize what a tremendous feet feat that was and how deeply , it impacted us. Both positively for an economic standpoint and in a negative way for the environment. The important story that we are trying to tell now is the effort that is underway to try to restore the river as much as possible. For its biodiversity and it is a wonderful part in our complex and important ecosystem. There is a legacy of the Illinois River, of the phenomenal productivity and diversity. People have been on the landscape for 12,000 years, harvesting the abundance of the Illinois River. We have lost some of that with commercialization of the river, pollution of the river. Development in the uplands and development on the floodplains. But i think there is a new interest in restoring some of the natural diversity and resources that are so important to communities. A century ago, the Illinois River was especially productive. It was the most productive inland fishery in north america. It was the most productive mu ssel stream in north america. And it was renowned for recreational hunting and also for commercial hunting. And the reason had little to do with the river and more with the broad floodplain. The rivers are not that productive, it is there their floodplains that are productive. So the flat area along the edge of a river that is oftentimes flooded, therefore, they call it a floodplain, it can be very productive. That is where the plants grow. They provide habitats and organisms and food for organisms that are eaten by other organisms. One of the big changes in the Illinois Waterway and river was when we started diverting waste from chicago in the early 1900s. In 1900, they opened the sanitary and ship canal which diverted waste away from Lake Michigan down the river and into the Illinois River. And there was a lot of untreated municipal waste, a lot of untreated industrial waste. The slaughterhouses in chicago were dumping the refuge into the their refusese into the river. So it created an oxygen demand. To break down that organic matter, human waste, waste from the slaughterhouses, it takes a lot of oxygen as the bacteria starts eating that stuff up. And as the oxygen was pulled out of the water, the upper river became anoxic. The fish left and a lot of the animal communities did really poorly for quite some time. So in 1900, the sanitary and ship canal was opened. And within 20 years, it devastated the river. Peoria was doing its part in adding to the refuse, too area too. It doesnt sound like a good idea but it was cheap and easy then. And so it helped to develop these cities, have they didnt have to worry about getting rid of their sewage. They just dumped it in the river. And so sewage had a detrimental effect on the river. All the people on the floodplains were dumping the sewage in the river. With the clean water act in the 1970s, we started focusing and an effort on cleaning what went into the river. And we spend billions of dollars on waste treatment and it has had a huge impact. Water quality still isnt what we want it to be. There are still some challenges, the last 10 is the toughest and most expensive. But we have stopped 90 of the pollution problem. The day in and day out, much better pollution than what it was in the 1970s. And we have seen a response from the fish communities along the river. There are a lot of places that have the assets that we have so it is tough to compete. But there are a lot of places that dont have a river like the Illinois River, which has so much potential. So i think if we continue to do good things for the ecology of the river and wildlife and fish continue to come back, as we develop Recreational Activities opportunities along the river and educate the public with how important the river has been in the past and even more so, how important it can be in the future, i think it will be more important than it ever was. This weekend, we are featuring the history of peoria, illinois, together with our Comcast Cable partners. Cspan. Org t citiestour. You are watching American History tv on cspan3. Each week, American History artifacts takes you to museums and Historic Places to reveal what artifacts reveal about American History. The uss wisconsin, one of the largest battleships built the u. S. Navy, was launched in 1943 and saw service through the gulf war. It is now decommissioned and ed in norfolk,th virginia. Welcome aboard the battleship wisconsin. We are here in norfolk, virginia. We are going to go below to look at the navy life and how some of the sailors lived here and reacted during the gulf war. Will also be joined by matt palmer, a veteran of the gulf war era. Follow me. Matt my name is matt palmer, im a former crew member of the battleship wisconsin. I served in the navy for 30 years. The battleship wisconsin with my fourth duty station. I was
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