Located at the confluence of three rivers — the Mississippi, the Missouri and the Illinois — Alton, Illinois, is known as “one of America’s most haunted small towns.” It sits on the Meeting of the Great Rivers National Scenic Byway, 33 miles of road cradled by the rolling waters of the Mississippi River.
Alton’s Lincoln & Civil War Legacy Trail, newly opened in fall 2008, is a wonderful way to experience the area’s history through the stories of President Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. The trail features 10 sites beginning at Lincoln-Douglas Square, where the last of the great debates between Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas took place. Other sites include Smallpox Island at Riverfront Park, where a deadly epidemic swept through the Alton Confederate Prison population in 1862, and the Lincoln Shields Recreation Area, site of the Lincoln-Shields Duel — also known as “The Duel That Never Happened.”
Other area attractions include the National Great Rivers Museum, which features interactive displays depicting life on the “Mighty Mississippi” and information about the famed expedition of Lewis & Clark. Nearby is the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, with its 55-foot, full-scale cutaway keelboat and replica of Camp River Dubois. Re-enactors and site interpreters demonstrate daily camp life in 1804 as expedition preparations got under way.
Comfy digs await visitors at the Holiday Inn Alton and the Pere Marquette Lodge & Conference Center in nearby Grafton. Hearty comfort food is found at My Just Desserts, but those with an appetite for ghosts can visit Troy Taylor’s History and Hauntings Book Company or join the author on a haunted tour through the streets and cemeteries of Alton.