The river expedition that opened the American West

In 1669, a French Jesuit priest living at a mission in present-day Wisconsin heard from members of the Illinois tribe about a great river. Intrigued, Jacques Marquette formulated a plan to explore the body of water and to learn about the Indigenous people that populated its shores. Several years later, he and Louis Jolliet did just that, becoming the first Europeans to map the northern portion of the Mississippi River.

On the 350th anniversary of