Shawneetown Road. As a result, the later Kaskaskia travelers followed the St. Louis Trace—much-traveled, broad, and hard—as far westward as Marion County, and then turned due southwest to Kaskaskia. Therefore it is necessary not to confound the ancient Kaskaskia trace to Vincennes with the later Kaskaskia trace which was identical for some distance with the more northerly St. Louis Trace.[1] At the same time it is easy to err in separating the older and newer routes too widely in the attempt not to confound them. The newer St. Louis Trace runs across from Indiana (Vincennes) to Missouri (St. Louis) through the Illinois counties of Lawrence, Richland, Clay, Marion, Clinton, and St. Clair. The course is practically that of the old Mississippi and Ohio (now the Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern) Railway. The route passed over the best course between the points, as proved by the railway surveyors and en-
- ↑ The map of Clark's route from Kaskaskia to Vincennes in the standard work on his campaigns of 1778–79, English's Conquest of the Northwest (vol. i, pp. 290–291), gives only the later Kaskaskia trace of the eighteenth century—the modern route which it is sure Clark did not pursue.
