Brick commercial buildings are spread throughout downtown. The city rises steeply from the waterfront, where massive concrete grain silos and railroad tracks were constructed in the 19th and 20th centuries to store and ship the area's grains and produce. Alton grew into a river trading town with an industrial character. Alton is located amid the confluence of three navigable rivers: the Illinois, the Mississippi, and the Missouri. Easton ran a passenger ferry service across the Mississippi River to the Missouri shore. 19th century Īlton was developed as a river town in January 1818 by Rufus Easton, who named it after his son. The image was described in 1673 by French missionary priest Father Jacques Marquette. Earlier native settlement is demonstrated by archaeological artifacts and the famous prehistoric Piasa bird painted on a cliff face nearby. Historic accounts indicate occupation of this area by the Illiniwek or Illinois Confederacy at the time of European contact. The Alton area was home to Native Americans for thousands of years before the 19th-century founding by European Americans of the modern city.

Numerous residences on hills have sweeping views of the Mississippi River. It was a commercial center for a large agricultural area. At the top of the hill in the commercial area, several stone churches and a fine city hall also represent the city's wealth during its good times based on river traffic, manufacturing and shipping. They represent a prosperous period in the river city's history. Many blocks of housing in Alton were built in the Victorian Queen Anne style. The resulting town was Grafton, Illinois. Louis businessmen planned to build a competing town to stop Alton's expansion and bring business to St. The former state penitentiary in Alton was used during the Civil War to hold up to 12,000 Confederate prisoners of war.Īlthough Alton once was growing faster than the nearby city of St. It was the site of the last Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate in October 1858. It is famous for its limestone bluffs along the river north of the city, as the former location of the state penitentiary, and for its role preceding and during the American Civil War. It is a part of the River Bend area in the Metro-East region of the Greater St. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 census. Alton ( / ˈ ɔː l t ən/ AWL-tən) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about 18 miles (29 km) north of St.

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