No. 01 · 5 places on file
LaSalle, Illinois
Little Reno's capital — Tom Cawley's First Street, the Hegeler-Carus Mansion, and the Carnegie library all in walking distance.
Walk LaSalle →Section C · The Map
The Towns
Six river towns within twenty miles of one another. Six histories that nobody outside the Illinois Valley quite remembers.
6 towns on the routeResearched 2026
No. 02 · 3 places on file
Peru, Illinois
Westclox patented Big Ben here. Tinney Cosgrove's son Mickey ran the Sinclair pump at 4th and Pike before Omaha Beach.
Walk Peru →No. 03 · 2 places on file
Utica, Illinois
Starved Rock and the I&M Canal terminus — where French fur traders, Illinois Confederation warriors, and Chicago canal boats all converged.
Walk Utica →No. 04 · 1 place on file
Ottawa, Illinois
John Hossack's house and the 1860 in-court rescue of Jim Gray — the loudest moment of the Underground Railroad in Illinois.
Walk Ottawa →No. 05 · 1 place on file
Cherry, Illinois
November 13, 1909. 259 dead in eight minutes — the disaster that wrote Illinois mine-safety law and the 1911 Workmen's Comp Act.
Walk Cherry →No. 06 · 0 places on file
Oglesby, Illinois
Cement, Deer Park, and the southern edge of the Hegeler-Matthiessen story.
Walk Oglesby →❦
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