Illinois River Road
Illinois River Road is a National Scenic Byway in Illinois. Within Illinois it covers roughly 290 miles. The map below shows its route. Use “Plan a drive” to open it in the Road Sorties route planner — already routing along Illinois River Road with scenic roads turned on, ready to add your own stops.
The Illinois River Road National Scenic Byway follows the Illinois River for 291 miles between Ottawa and Havana, through ten counties of west-central Illinois. Route 29 runs the west bank and Route 26 the east; formed as a regional byway program in 2005, it links river towns including LaSalle, once a bustling crossroads where the Illinois and Michigan Canal met the river and briefly larger than Chicago; Ottawa, where Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas held the first of their seven famous 1858 debates in Washington Square; and the Lovejoy Homestead, an Underground Railroad station turned museum since 1972. Farther south the route passes Pekin, East Peoria, Lacon, Hennepin, Lewistown, and Canton, tracing backwater lakes and river bottomland that make the corridor one of the Midwest's best spots for viewing wintering bald eagles. The byway markets itself around nearly two dozen historic and natural sites, from Native American mound sites to old canal towns, more than any single landmark.
- Illinois River
- Ottawa
- LaSalle
- Lovejoy Homestead
- 291 miles
- Lincoln-Douglas debate site
- bald eagle viewing
Designated for its natural qualities
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Places to stop along Illinois River Road
Reddick Mansion
An Italianate mansion from the late 1850s facing Ottawa's Washington Square, where Lincoln and Douglas held their first debate in August 1858.
WebsiteStarved Rock State Park
Sandstone canyons carved by glacial meltwater, with waterfalls that run strongest in spring, trails to river overlooks, and a log lodge built by the CCC in the 1930s.
WebsiteMatthiessen State Park
Starved Rock's quieter neighbor: a shaded dells canyon of sandstone walls, stairways, and small falls, with fewer crowds on a summer weekend.
WebsiteForest Park Nature Center
More than 500 acres of wooded bluffs in Peoria Heights, with hiking trails, a small natural history museum, and a bird-viewing room.
WebsiteGrandview Drive
A 2.5-mile parkway on the bluff above the Illinois River, called the "world's most beautiful drive" in a remark long credited to Theodore Roosevelt.
Spirit of Peoria
A genuine paddlewheel riverboat, driven by its wheel rather than hidden propellers, running sightseeing and overnight cruises from the Peoria riverfront.
WebsiteWildlife Prairie Park
A large park west of Peoria showing animals native to Illinois, past and present, including bison, elk, wolves, and black bears, on prairie and woodland trails.
WebsiteDickson Mounds Museum
A free Illinois State Museum branch on a bluff near Lewistown that traces 12,000 years of Native American life in the Illinois River valley.
WebsiteEmiquon Preserve
Former farmland returned to floodplain lakes and marsh, now a Wetland of International Importance. Boardwalks and an observation deck put you among huge flocks of migrating waterbirds.
Website
Where to Stay along Illinois River Road
3 campgrounds and RV parks sit within about 5 miles of Illinois River Road.
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What is a National Scenic Byway?
National Scenic Byways are roads recognized at the federal level for at least one outstanding quality — scenic, natural, historic, cultural, archaeological or recreational — that gives travelers a reason to seek them out rather than just pass through.