1893 Map of Lacon

About this map

The Illinois River corridor dominates this late nineteenth-century landscape, carving a wide valley filled with backwater lakes and shifting marshes. High bluffs rise sharply from the eastern and western banks, where small prairie settlements like Whitefield and Cottage Hill sit atop the plateau. The river was the primary artery of commerce and navigation, evidenced by the Lock near the grid-patterned town of Henry. Adjacent to the river, the expansive Senachwine Lake and Goose Lake reflect a time before modern drainage and levee systems significantly altered the Illinois valley bottomlands.