state by state speak your mind about...illinois

[Little Star]

22. About 30 something years ago I spent a week in Woodridge, IL...

My daughter attended the Wilton Cake decorating course and I was along for the ride. We did find some time to go into Chicago a couple of times. But not enough to really form an opinion about the city as a tourist adventure. All in all we had a great time and we especially liked the waterfront.

Here are some of the things I think would interest me if I visited Illinois:

Northern Illinois: The Windy City & Galena

Central Illinois: Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum & Amish Country

Western Illinois: Take a drive along the Great River Road, which follows the Mississippi and extends the full length of the western border. “A riverside Illinois vacation rental is the ideal way to experience the western part of the state”, that statement really speaks to me!

Southern Illinois: Drive the 188 miles of the Ohio River National Scenic Byway.


Here is a link to The Illinois Official Tourism Website:
http://www.enjoyillinois.com/home.aspx



Just for fun here are some trivia and facts about Illinois:

1. Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy and Alton hosted the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates that stirred interest all over the country in the slavery issue.

2. The first Aquarium opened in Chicago, 1893.

3. The world's first Skyscraper was built in Chicago, 1885.

4. Home to the Chicago Bears Football Team, Chicago Blackhawks hockey team, Chicago Bulls basketball team, Chicago Cubs and Chicago Whitesox baseball teams, Chicago Fire soccer team.

5. The first Mormon Temple in Illinois was constructed in Nauvoo.

6. Peoria is the oldest community in Illinois.

7. The Sears Tower, Chicago is the tallest building on the North American continent.

8. Metropolis the home of Superman really exists in Southern Illinois.

9. Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site--most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico

10. Illinois had two capital cities, Kaskaskia, and Vandalia before Springfield.

11. The NFL's Chicago Bears were first known as the "Staley Bears". They were organized in 1920, in Decatur.

12. Illinois was the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery.

13. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi and a small band of scientists and engineers demonstrated that a simple construction of graphite bricks and uranium lumps could produce controlled heat. The space chosen for the first nuclear fission reactor was a squash court under the football stadium at the University of Chicago.

14. Des Plaines is home to the first McDonald's.

15. Dixon is the boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan.

16. Springfield is the state capital and the home of the National Historic Site of the home of President and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln.

17. Chicago is home to the Chicago Water Tower and Pumping Station, the only buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire.

18. Before Abraham Lincoln was elected president he served in the Illinois legislature and practiced law in Springfield. Abraham Lincoln is buried just outside Springfield at Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site.

19. Carlyle is the home of the largest man-made lake in Illinois.

20. Illinois has 102 counties.

21. Ronald Wilson Regan from Tampico became the 40th president of the United States in 1980.

22. The highest point in Illinois is Charles Mound at 1235 feet above sea level.

23. The state motto is: State Sovereignty, National Union

24. The ice cream "sundae" was named in Evanston. The piety of the town resented the dissipating influences of the soda fountain on Sunday and the good town fathers, yielding to this churchly influence, passed an ordinance prohibiting the retailing of ice cream sodas on Sunday. Ingenious confectioners and drug store operators obeying the law, served ice cream with the syrup of your choice without the soda. Objections then were made to christening a dish after the Sabbath. So the spelling of "Sunday" was changed. It became an established dish and an established word and finally the "sundae".

25. The round Silo for farm storage of silage was first constructed on a farm in Spring Grove.


There's a bunch more at: http://www.50states.com/facts/illinois.htm