Journey back Inside The Blanket Fort as we talk with Daniel Overturf who took all of the photographs for the SIU Press book Illinois Trails & Traces: Portraits and Stories along the State’s Historic Routes with text by Gary Marx and a foreword by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin.
This book takes the reader on a journey down early buffalo traces and Native American trails, and then shows how these paths evolved into wagon roads and paved highways. Marx and Overturf explore historic routes ranging from Route 66 to the Underground Railroad, all the way back to post-Ice Age animal migration trails followed by Paleo-Indian people.
The authors also examine how rivers, canals, and railroads spurred the rapid rise of Illinois as a modern state, and they share over forty photographic portraits and written profiles of individuals who live along these historic routes today.