A History of Alton, Illinois and the Riverbend Area taken from the Missouri Historical Society Publication, Where We Live: Alton

A Short History of Alton

Alton, Illinois, 25 miles north of St. Louis, prides itself on being different. Located on the north side of the Mississippi River, the "River Bend" area, as the greater Alton area is known, is the only place in the United States where the Mississippi flows from west to east. Alton's location as a river town and its unique topography, with its natural harbor bluffs, and hilly terrain, have always set it apart from the surrounding area. And like their town, the people of Alton consider themselves a world apart, especially from St. Louis.

The area's first European settler was a Frenchman named Jean Baptiste Cardinal, who ran a short-lived fur trading post on the site of present-day Alton in the late eighteenth century. The town's official founder was Rufus Easton, a land speculator who also happened to be postmaster general of St. Louis. Easton eyed the site as the perfect location for a steamboat landing, which he named after his son, Alton. Although Rufus Easton never lived there, he started a passenger ferry line service between Alton and Missouri in 1818.

As a river town, Alton grew rapidly in the 1830's, thanks to a growing steamboat trade with New Orleans and St. Louis. In 1837, Alton was incorporated as a city. "The rapid development of the city of Alton from its original condition to its present prosperous state is not easily matched in enterprising Western America," observed Henry Lewis, a German writer, in 1848. "The city has wide, attractive streets, several excellent houses of worship, and numerous mercantile establishments which do an extensive business."

The same year Alton incorporated, Elijah Lovejoy, the abolitionist minister and editor of the Alton Observer, was murdered by a mob of pro-slavery sympathizers, and his printing press was tossed into the Mississippi. Lovejoy's murder tarnished Alton's reputation, and the demise of the steamboat era put a damper on its economic growth.

But Alton bounced back as a commercial center. By the 1850's, the first railroad station renewed the riverfront as travelers from the north disembarked on their way to St. Louis by ferry. Alton's close proximity to Missouri also made it a logical stopping point for the Underground Railroad. Today many of the area's African Americans can trace their families back to the pre-Civil War years.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Alton's location on the river as well as its excellent railroad facilities attracted heavy industries. The companies became the area's largest employers and helped mold Alton's social classes and neighborhoods. Wealthier families built palatial mansions high on the hills and bluffs, while working-class families lived in more modest dwellings in the gullies below. By 1895, Alton's largest employer, Illinois Glass Company (Owens-Illinois, Inc.), employed 2400 people. By 1912, the Alton Manufacturing District along the riverfront boasted 102 industries, and that number continued to grow into the 1920s.

The face of Alton started to change in the 1950s. Many of the area's industries shut down, their plants obsolete and too expensive to renovate. Symbolic of this trend, Owens-Illinois, Inc. closed its major shop in 1983. Like other downtown areas across America, Alton's once bustling retail district suffered with the opening of a new outlying shopping center. Several historic buildings, including the 1860s-era Union Railroad Station, were torn down.

During those same years, newcomers poured into Alton, urban refugees from Chicago and St. Louis, young families who fell in love with the Victorian-era houses, tree-lined streets, pockets of woods and tiny city parks. Most commuted to jobs in St. Louis or at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville; others opened small businesses in the area. Rejuvenated by the newcomers' appreciation for their town, Altonians organized to preserve their architectural heritage and history. Thanks to local preservationists' efforts, three neighborhoods and 11 buildings were placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and one building was listed as a National Historic Landmark.

Alton continues to redefine itself in new ways as it celebrates its past. Downtown's "Antique Row" has helped revitalize the area, and the Alton Belle Casino, opened in September 1991, employs 840 people and brings additional visitors to the area. The new Clark bridge, opened in January 1994, promises easier access between Alton and the St. Louis area, and plans are in the works for a new parklike setting along the riverfront. But even as the gap between Alton and "that town" to the south closes, Altonians see their home as an alternative to, never a suburb of, St. Louis.

Lovejoy Monument and Grave Site
Alton Cemetery
Fifth and Monument Streets

The 90-foot monument, a symbol of freedom in memory of Alton's most famous martyr, the abolitionist editor of the Alton Observer, was created by St. Louis architect Louis Mullgardt and sculptor Robert P. Bringhurst. Sixty years after Elijah P. Lovejoy's death at the hands of a pro-slavery mob, the monument was dedicated on November 7,1897. Local funds were raised to pay for the monument; a state grant from the Illinois legislature helped pay for the construction. Lovejoy is not buried at the monument, but 110 yards behind it.

Every year on the anniversary of Lovejoy's death, Altonians gather at Lovejoy's grave site as a pledge to create a better community and world. The Lovejoy Monument is the tallest monument in the state of Illinois.

Elijah P. Lovejoy Press
in the lobby of the Telegraph
111 East Broadway

After Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered, the mob broke apart his press and threw it into the Mississippi River. The lobby of the Telegraph houses the remains of this press, recovered from the river in 1915. The Telegraph, originally called the Alton Observer, first started publishing in 1836, a year before Lovejoy's death.

The Observer reported the "lamentable occurence" as follows: "It is with deepest regret that we stop the press in order to state that, at a late hour last night, an attack was made by a large number of persons, on the Warehouse of Messrs. Godfrey, Gilman & Co., for the purpose of destroying a press, intended for the revival of the Alton Observer; which, shocking to relate, resulted in the death of two individuals - the Rev. E.P. Lovejoy, late Editor of the Observer, and a man named Bishop. Seven others were wounded; two severely, and the others slightly."

Lincoln-Douglas Debate Marker
Broadway and Market Streets

Altonians were proud to host the seventh and final debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas on October 15, 1858. Lincoln, a Republican, and Douglas, a northern Democrat, were battling for a seat in the U.S. Senate. The event was one of the largest political events to be held in Alton, and reports stated that more than 6,000 spectators showed up. The debate took place on a platform in front of the newly completed city hall, which was destroyed by fire in 1924. Although Douglas won the senatorial seat, two years later he lost the presidential election to Lincoln.

Enos Apartments
325 East Third Street

From the 1830s through the Civil War, Alton was a major stop on the Underground Railroad, which provided safe passage for escaped slaves from the Confederacy and the border state of Missouri. According to legend, one stop on the Underground Railroad was the Enos Apartments, whose basements included a series of rooms and passageways 15 feet below street level. In 1910, the building was bought by a Dr. Enos, who turned it into a sanitarium.

Christian Hill Historic District
On the Mississippi River bluffs immediately west of the central
business district, bounded by Broadway, Belle, 7th, Cliff, Bluff
and State Streets.

One of Alton's three neighborhoods listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Christian Hill Historic District features homes dating back to Alton's early years in the 1830s. In the 1970s, residents of Christian Hill were among the first activists to fight for the preservation of Alton's historic homes.

Christian Hill's name originated when the new Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church was built on State Street in the 1850s. The site of the old Catholic church across town was sold to the Unitarians. Among the neighborhood's most significant structures is the Lucas Pfeiffenberger House at 708 state Street. Pfeiffenberger was one of the most important Alton architects and served as mayor of Alton for four successive terms. The remains of the old state penitentiary are also located here.

Middletown Historic District
With Henry Street as its "spine," this district extends north to 20th
Street, west to the Belle-Alby corridor and east to Central Street.

The largest of Alton's historic districts, Middletown contains stately mansions as well as modest workers' homes from the nineteenth century, thus reflecting Alton's social history . Middletown features 1830s merchants' homes, baronial mansions built by late nineteenth-century industrialists and small houses constructed by German immigrants who settled in the area in the 1840s and 1850s.

Most of the homes in the district were built between 1830 and 1890. The Lyman Trumbull House is located in Middletown, as are the Haskell Playhouse and the Samuel Wade House. The latter was the home of one of Alton's earliest settlers.

Haskell Playhouse
1211 Henry Street

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this tiny replica of a Victorian-era home was built around 1880 by Dr. and Mrs. William A. Haskell and was designed by famed Alton architect Lucas Pfeiffenberger. The Haskells built the house for their only daughter, Lucy, who died of diphtheria in 1889.

Today the house is part of Haskell Park and is used for educational and recreational purposes by the Alton Park and Recreation Commission. The original Haskell House is long gone.

Lyman Trumbull House
1105 Henry Street

This house, located on one of the main streets of Alton's Middletown Historic District, was named as a National Historic Landmark in 1975. It was once the home of Senator Lyman Trumbull, author of the Thirteenth Ammendment, which abolished slavery.

The house was built around 1820. Senator Trumbull lived here from 1855 to 1873. Like many other homes in Alton, the Lyman Trumbull House was designed to accommodate its hillside location by having its dining room, kitchen and a secondary entrance in the basement.

Upper Alton Historic District
Approximately two miles northeast of Alton's central business district,
along Seminary Street, College, Leverett and Evergreen Avenues.

The smallest of Alton's historic districts, two miles norteast of the central business district, Upper Alton was once a separate town from Rufus Easton's "Lower Alton." It was laid out in 1816 and 1817 by Joseph Meacham and was incorporated as a village in 1821.

Throughout much of the nineteenth century, Upper Alton was synonymous with Shurtleff College, and the area had the flavor of a college town. Upper Alton was annexed by the city of Alton in 1911.

Upper Alton became known as "Pietown" in the nineteenth century. The origins of its nickname either go back to the Mexican War or the Civil War, when the women of Upper Alton baked pies for the soldiers encamped north of the city.

Upper Alton's annual Memorial day parade is believed to be one of the oldest continuous Memorial Day parades in the United States.

Confederate Cemetery and Monument
Rozier Street

Alton holds the honor of housing Illinois' first state penitentiary, built in 1833. During the Civil War, the facility was used as a military prison for Conferate soldiers. When a smallpox epidemic broke out in 1863, it became difficult to control the spread of the deadly disease in the already overcrowded prison.

The Confederate Monument features the names of the 1,354 prisoners who died in Alton's Confederate Prison during the smallpox epidemic.

Piasa Bird

Most Altonians, even the newcomers, are steeped in Alton's many legends, and the Piasa Bird story is one that everybody knows. According to legend, the Piasa (pronounced PIE a saw) was a birdlike monster who preyed on humans. Named by the Illini Indians, Piasa means "the bird that devours men." The legend claims that the Piasa was eventually killed by a band of Illini led by Chief Ouatoga. To celebrate the event, the Indians engraved the Piasa's image on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River outside of modern-day Alton.

Robert Pershing Wadlow

Robert Wadlow was a shy, bespectacled, friendly, young giant when he died July 14, 1940 at the age of 22. He is still the tallest man in history. He never sought publicity, but from the day reporters learned about a boy too big for his school desk, until the day of his death in a Michigan hotel room, his activities were followed by almost every major newspaper in the country. "He never had any privacy except in his own home," said his father, Harold F. Wadlow, Mayor of Alton from 1945 to 1949. "But Robert never complained."

Robert weighed a normal 8 pounds, 6 ounces when he was born, February 22, 1918, in a small frame house on Monroe Street. He was 8 feet, 11 inches tall when he died and weighed a little more than 490 pounds. He had been the tallest person in the world since 1939, when, at the age of 18, he "outgrew" an 8 feet, 4 inch Irish giant who died 60 years before.

All entries but Robert Wadlow are taken from the Missouri Historical Society publication, Where We Live: Alton written by Elizabeth Metzger Armstrong. Reprinted with permission.
Robert Pershing Wadlow taken from the Greater Alton/Twin Rivers Convention & Visitors Bureau publication Alton's Gentleman Giant. Reprinted with permission.

A History of Alton

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