The Grande Prairie

•April 30, 2025•

by Janet Roney

 “Go west, young man, go west!” That was Horace Greely’s advice to a generation of young adventurers and pioneers in the 1800s. We think of the advancement of civilization across America always moving west towards the setting sun, filling up the land with settlers along the way.

Nice assumption, but wrong. Pioneers skipped over whole areas of the continental United States, heading for the best places to live. One of those passed-over areas was central Illinois. 

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