Two More Early Moultrie Trails
•April 1, 2026•

by Janet Roney

For the last two years, this weekly column has been telling the early history of our Moultrie County in the Sullivan New-Progress by sharing stories about its early trails. The term “trackless prairie” certainly does not apply to our county, for prehistoric animals and early man left several well-traveled trails all over its surface. They led to prairie groves for shelter and along the break between the edge of the prairie and timber land that bordered the Kaskaskia and West Okaw rivers, where movement over the land was easier. In some places, these trails became “sunken roads” that were worn deeper into the surface by thousands of years of passing hooves and feet as they led down to the best gravel-bottomed and shallow river fords.

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