Lenore Sobota | lsobota@pantagraph.com
Long before there was State Farm, Illinois State University, the city of Bloomington or even the state of Illinois, there was the Grand Village of the Kickapoo.
The large American Indian settlement located near present-day LeRoy was home to between 2,000 and 3,000 Kickapoo when a surveyor passed through the area in 1824.
But the settlement is believed to have been there since at least 1752, when a French explorer/soldier wrote home about the site.
With the loss of buffalo herds on the prairie and tensions from the Black Hawk War in 1832, the village faded away and the tribe fractured, moving to Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Mexico.
In 1998, a Homecoming Powwow took place at the former site of the Grand Village.
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The powwow, which attracted about 7,000 people, was hosted by Bill and Doris Emmett, who owned the land at that time, and by Midwest SOARRING (Save Our Ancesters Remains & Resources Indigenous Network Group). The organization educates the public about American Indian cultural issues.
Among the Kickapoo who attended that first homecoming powwow was Margarita Salazar, then 104, who said through an interpreter, “All our grandmothers lived here. …I feel good over it, that I can be around where my ancestors once roamed.”
The one-acre Grand Village of the Kickapoo Park was dedicated during the powwow and buffalo were returned to roam. Powwows have taken place periodically since then. The most recent was Sept. 9 and 10.