For some time, Carl Kupfer (Chicago Map Society) and David Buisseret have been trying to assess historians’ accounts of the trails in Illinois – the Potawatomi Trail, the Shawnee Trace, the Sauk and Kickapoo Trail, the Sauk and Fox Trail and so forth. This presentation will use generally-neglected early nineteenth-century maps to establish where many of these trails ran. After covering the major trails in the state at large, the talk will offer a detailed summary of the many trails which converged on the future site of Chicago.
Event—Public Programming