Part 11 of personal reflections and historic explorations of the Grafton to Cairo length of Illinois Route 3 by writer and poet Richard Stimac.
I’d never stopped in Cahokia, now Cahokia Heights, before writing this blog. I’d driven through on Illinois Route 3, heading south from Sauget to East Carondelet. The small town of Cahokia is the oldest continuously inhabited French settlement in Illinois. The original 1689 name was simply Cahokia. In 2021, Cahokia, Alorton (originally Alcoa, named after the Aluminum Company of America), and Centerville merged into Cahokia Heights. I assume that addition of the word “Heights” was to differentiate the town from the World Heritage Site and pre-Columbian urban settlement of Cahokia, ten miles to the east. The addition of “Heights” is odd, since the town is in bottomland and given to frequent flooding. Maybe the name change was aspirational.
In the mid-1760s, a multi-tribe uprising in the Great Lakes and Ohio River valley pushed back against British policies that allowed, if not promoted, settlers to move in those regions. Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, became de facto leader of the uprising. The Indians failed to expel the British and the British failed to defeat the Indians. The stalemate resulted in a royal proclamation restricting settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains, a limitation mentioned obliquely in the American Declaration of Independence a decade later. The lack of resolution unsettled the pan-Indian alliance. Pontiac retired, so to speak, to Cahokia. Circumstances and reasons are unclear to explain why a Peoria warrior clubbed Pontiac to death when the old chief was entering a Cahokia trading post. The belief, with no supporting written record, is that he was buried on the outskirts of the Missouri village that would become St. Louis.
The old courthouse
In 1900, the St. Louis chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution bought a now-lost plaque to commemorate Pontiac. A new downtown-St. Louis plaque hangs on a parking garage within a few blocks of the Gateway Arch, the old courthouse where Dred Scott lost his case and the antebellum slave pens. In Cahokia Heights, another plaque to Pontiac hangs near the reconstructed French-Canadian style old courthouse. When I visited, this plaque was so worn and oxidated, I could barely make out letters, let alone words or full sentences.
Cahokia Pontiac Plate (image copyright: Richard C. Stimac).
The centre of contemporary Cahokia Heights is the same crossroad as the 17th century Cahokia. The east-west Camp Jackson Road intersects Illinois Route 3. The only historical Camp Jackson was a pro-Confederacy militia outpost in St. Louis during the American Civil War. Before the St. Louis federal arsenal of weapons could be captured, a small Union detachment scattered the militia. Camp Jackson travels through what is now a heavily Black majority municipality. I couldn’t find when the road was named and if it was meant to commemorate the pro-Confederacy camp or the Union victory of that camp. The name may be another vestige of history in Cahokia.
Cahokia old courthouse (image copyright: Richard C. Stimac).
Holy Family Catholic Church
One block east from Illinois Route 3 and the Camp Jackson intersection is the reconstruction of the old courthouse behind the Cahokia Volunteer Fire Department. The State of Illinois maintains a small visitor centre beside the courthouse. Both were locked when I visited. Squints through the glass into the darkened buildings gave what one would expect: historical reproductions like old desks and chairs in the courthouse; and pamphlets and glass displays in the visitor centre. One block east from the intersection is the Holy Family Catholic Church, the actual original French colonial building from 1786 and the oldest continuously active Catholic parish in the United States.
Holy Family Catholic Church (image copyright: Richard C. Stimac).
Both the reconstructed old courthouse and the extant Catholic church use the French-Canadian “poteaux-sur-sol” (“posts on a sill”) building style. The descriptive name is accurate. Large closely spaced posts rest on a timber sill, or plate, that keep the wood off the ground. A mix of clay and stone rubble called pierrotage fills between the posts. The alternative building style was “poteaux-en-terre” where the posts extended into the ground. Either post construction used less wood when compared to the horizontal log cabin method common elsewhere. The Wikipedia page for “poteaux-sur-sol” uses the Cahokia church as its main image. Other examples of “poteaux-sur-sol” exist within an hour’s drive south from Cahokia in St. Genevieve, Missouri, and Illinois Route 3 Prairie Du Rocher, Illinois, both across the river from one another.
Cahokia Heights as an agricultural centrepoint
French commerce reintroduced itself into Cahokia Heights. In the mid-20th century, the French-headquartered and founded Louis Dreyfus agricultural commodities company began operations in the United States, including a barge terminal in Cahokia Heights. If you recognise the name as that of the actress Julie Louis Dreyfus, you are correct, which is why she pronounces “Louis” in French as “Louie.” The “D” in Louis Dreyfus is the “D” in the big four ABCD of agricultural commodities in the United States that also includes Archer Daniels Midland; St. Louis headquartered Bunge; and Cargill. After three hundred plus years, Cahokia still attracts French traders.
When I visited the closed Cahokia old courthouse, hopper bottom trails trucks rumbled past a block away at the intersection of W 1st Street and Cargill Elevator Road that leads to the Archer Daniel Midland, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus grain terminals on the river. The Bunge terminal is further north. I wanted inside the two buildings, even though I knew what the exhibits would be like. An Illinois state Web site listed hours and a number to call. I called. The voicemail was full. I sent an email. No response. I called and sent an email to the Cahokia Heights city hall. No response either.
When Cahokia Heights was formed by the merger of Cahokia, Alorton, and Centerville, the new municipality inherited the empty strip malls, boarded up houses and inadequate flood drainage of all three smaller towns. A cluster of military-like buildings sits along Camp Jackson from the Holy Family Church. The buildings are the remnants of soon-to-be one hundred year old Parks College, the first federally funded flying school. In 1996, Parks College moved to the campus of Saint Louis University, itself the oldest university west of the Mississippi. The city of Cahokia Heights bought the vacant land and built first a community recreation centre and is currently completing a new high school.