Ft. Gage Village

Ft. Gage Village. Kaskaskia-Cahokia Trail. , This region lowered the French Bourbon flag in October 1765 when the territory fell under British control. A British military report commissioned a few years later states that the French redoubt here called Fort Kaskaskia had been burned and abandoned. The remnants of that structure are located atop the river bluff behind the Menard Home. The British also noted in their report that French authorities had expelled the Jesuits from Illinois, leaving a substantial stone compound within the Kaskaskia village unoccupied. British forces ultimately relocated to this Jesuit monastery from Fort de Chartres. They added a stockade and a few cannons to the facility and called it "Fort Gage." This outpost was captured by George Rogers Clark's Virginians on July 4, 1778. Afterward, some of Clark's men utilized the earthen remnants of the French blufftop redoubt again. A new American Fort Kaskaskia was constructed in 1802. It served as a vital supply depot for Lewis and Clark. The explorers recruited their largest contingent of men from Kaskaskia. As time passed, the chaotic Revolutionary War period in Kaskaskia led to confusion. The surviving French redoubt atop the bluff was often confused with the short-lived British "Fort Gage." , Meanwhile, Kaskaskia thrived as territorial and state capital before falling into a long decline. New arrivals to the area began work to establish a port nearby in the 1810s. By the 1840s, Chester was a thriving river town that expanded along ridges and valleys high above the Mississippi 's Reach. After Kaskaskia was inundated by the flood of 1844, the Randolph County seat was moved to Chester where it remains. , In 1881, the Mississippi cut through the Kaskaskia River's channel just above the village and slowly destroyed most of the original settlement-including any archaeological remnants of Fort Gage. The village was severed from the old Kaskaskia Cahokia Trail, its only land connection to Illinois. Scattered writings from the period note that discussions were underway about moving Kaskaskia to bluffs around the Menard Home, an outlying area of the old village. These discussions were the likely origin of Fort Gage Village that took shape here in the late 1800s. The village was subdivided by Charles Lynn in 1895. It included a church, train depot, several businesses, and about 40 houses. At one point, a room in the Menard Home served as a post office for the settlement. Fort Gage Village had two busy rail lines that eventually became the Missouri Pacific and now the Union Pacific. At the same time this village was laid out, Kaskaskia was moved into its common fields, further from the river and isolated from Illinois. , , A few homes from Fort Gage survive, and the village's Catholic Church is now located at the intersection of Shawneetown Trail and Route 3. The Menard Home's grounds include much of what was once Fort Gage Village. Pierre Menard (1766- 1844) built this structure in the early 1800s. He was president of the Illinois territorial assembly and its first lieutenant governor. The home is an exceptional and largely original example of French Creole architecture. From his galerie, Menard would have looked down a gently sloping hill across the small Kaskaskia River toward the village that Illinois' early founders called home. , Fort Kaskaskia State Historic Site encompasses around 300 acres. It contains both historic and recreational features including a campground. Trail steps connect the Menard Home to the park. Fort Kaskaskia's overlook offers an extraordinary view of the river valley and the Missouri Ozark hills. , The K-C Trail is a 60-mile corridor running through Randolph, Monroe and St. Clair Counties. The trail dates back to use by Native American civilizations as long ago as 11,000 BC. It played an integral part in French Colonization, and remained a main road through the founding of Illinois as a state. It remains a highly trafficked route in the Metro East St. Louis Region.