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In 1820, the Bridges Family established a tavern and a wayside store in
far southern Illinois for guests traveling Old Lusk’s Ferry Road, between
the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. In 1838, this route, which became known
as the “Trail of Tears,” was used for the forced removal of Cherokee
Indians from the southeastern U.S. According to published sources from the
period, part of the Bridges’ property was used as a winter encampment for
the Cherokees. The timber-plank walls of the wayside store—the state’s
only known surviving structure with a connection to the Trail of Tears
National Historic Trail—remain intact within an existing barn on the
property.
The nine-acre parcel is expected to go on the market soon and it
is feared that the barn and store could be demolished and the site further
altered. The Johnson County Historical Society is interested in acquiring
the property for possible use as the only Trail of Tears interpretive site
in Illinois.
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