Starved Rock State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Illinois, characterized by the many canyons within its 2,630 acres (1,064 ha). Located just southeast of the village of Utica, in Deer Park Township, LaSalle County, Illinois, along the south bank of the Illinois River, the park hosts over two million visitors annually, the most for any Illinois state park.
Starved Rock as viewed from the north side of the Illinois River, and the Illinois Waterway channel.
St. Louis Canyon waterfall
Portrait of René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, who built the first French settlement in northern Illinois
Ferdinand Walther constructed the Starved Rock Hotel for his resort, seen here c. 1905, which no longer exists. In 1911 he sold the resort to the State of Illinois. The "rock" is the bluff in the upper right.
Illinois is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash and Ohio rivers to its south. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-most land area. Its largest urban areas include Chicago and the Metro East of Greater St. Louis, as well as Peoria, Rockford, Champaign–Urbana, and Springfield, the state's capital.
Mississippian copper plate found at the Saddle Site in Union County, Illinois
Illinois in 1718, approximate modern state area highlighted, from Carte de la Louisiane et du cours du Mississipi by Guillaume de L'Isle
The bell donated by King Louis XV in 1741 to the French mission at Kaskaskia. It was later called the "Liberty Bell of the West", after it was rung to celebrate U.S. victory in the Revolution
Old State Capitol: Abraham Lincoln and other area legislators were instrumental in moving the state capitol to centrally located Springfield in 1839.
