La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West by Francis ParkmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I come from a small town in Northwestern Illinois and grew up with an interest in history, especially local history. Being from a rural area, we considered anything within an hour or so, also generally rural areas, to be neighbors. Starved Rock, in Utica, I always considered to be close, so I was interested in the history of the area, and had visited many times. I’m also amazed that local history was rarely covered in school growing up. So now, 40 years past high school, I learn that explorer LaSalle visited Starved Rock multiple times as he explored the Midwest, and even built a fort on the rock. LaSalle’s visits to Starved Rock bookend his multiple trips on downstream on the Illinois River on his way to the Mississippi and even to the gulf. Even more interesting is that we learn in this book that the author, Francis Parkman, even visited Starved Rock to determine the location of an Indian village and site of a massacre. So far in Parkman’s history series on England and France in the New World, this is the only mention of the author writing about himself, so it stands out. I find it disappointing that the visit of a famous historian to the area, now over 150 years ago, never made the radar of any of my history teachers in school. Sad.
Stepping off my soapbox, I enjoyed this story of LaSalle’s many explorations of the Midwest and, unfortunate for him, Texas. Parkman provides a surprising level of detail and is able to tell the exploration story that keeps the interest high, even following the remnants of his group of explorers after his death, finding their way back to civilization, not surprisingly through Starved Rock. This was the volume in Parkman’s series that I thought would be most interesting to me, given the local content, and so far I’d say it was. While I enjoy Parkman’s ability to craft a story, his next volume that appears to be all Canadian isn’t calling to me.
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