The Lighthouses of Illinois

As land hungry American settlers moved west in the nineteenth century they found at their disposal the largest inland transportation system in the world: the Great Lakes. The 94,710 square miles of the Great Lakes contained nearly 20% of the world's fresh water, enough to Cover the continental United States to a depth of ten feet. Some have called the Great Lakes the fresh water Mediterranean of the Western Hemisphere. Such fact and fancy was unimportant to the new settlers out to make their fortunes and conquer the wilderness; they found the 2,342 miles of connecting waterways indispensable to their dreams of riches.