Special thanks to artist Richard Kallstrom, Huntley, IL
The northern boundary of Illinois as prescribed in The Ordinance of 1787 was an east-west line parallel with the southern-most tip of Lake Michigan at approximately 41° 38' passing through this region to the Mississippi River. When Illinois applied for admission into the Union in early 1818, the bill included this boundary.
While the measure was still pending in the House, Nathaniel Pope, the Illinois Territory Delegate to Congress, felt the necessity of giving Illinois a firm footing on Lake Michigan thus committing its interest to northern trade through the Great Lakes to off-set the influence of the southern trade on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers in case of future internal conflict arising over slavery.
Pope felt that the territorial addition would "afford additional security to the perpetuity of the Union" since the State would thereby be connected with the free states of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York through the Great Lakes.
The amendment introduced by Pope which shifted the boundary approximately 61 miles north to 42° 30' passed easily and the enabling act was approved on April 18, 1818. Illinois gained 14 counties covering 8,500 square miles of fertile soil, lake and river ports, and such future prosperous cities as Chicago, Rockford, Freeport, and Galena.
Politically, this additional northern territory decisively influenced Illinois in favor of national unity and against slavery during the civil war period and was important in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Thus Pope's foresight had national repercussions as well as significance for Illinois.
Logging Requirement:
Take a photo of yourself (face not required, per geocaching guidelines) or your GPS device in front of the historical marker and post it with your log.
Logs that do not meet the logging requirement, i.e., those with no pic posted, will be deleted. Sorry. I would not want to delete a log, so please ensure the logging requirement is met.
This virtual geocache opportunity came at the time Illinois was celebrating its bicentennial. So the search was on for an interesting bit of Illinois history to serve as this virtual cache.
The story of how Illinois’ northern boundary came to be and the thought of how different our state would have been had the border not been shifted north is fascinating. And because this story is about location and latitude positioning, it ties-in perfectly to geocaching. In looking for an existing plaque, I found that back in 1965, 53 years ago, a historical marker about the northern border had been placed along US 34 west of Plano, but was missing according to the Illinois State Historical Society.
So I wanted to re-introduce this 200 year-old story by placing a new historical marker here in Yorkville on August 14, 2018 in celebration of the Illinois Bicentennial and the virtual geocache reward. Some of the original verbiage has been tweaked just a bit and a map has been added for visual perspective.
Virtual Reward - 2017/2018
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between August 24, 2017 and August 24, 2018. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards on the Geocaching Blog.