The Church of the Holy Family (French: Eglise de la Sainte-Famille) is a Roman Catholic church located at 116 Church Street in Cahokia, Illinois. Established by missionaries from Quebec who originally arrived in Cahokia on December 8, 1698, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and offered the first Mass on the banks of the Mississippi River. The log church was built in 1799 and the congregation is the oldest continuously active Catholic Parish in the United States, having been founded in 1699 by the Canadian missionaries, and the oldest church west of the Allegheny Mountains. The church campus includes three buildings: the 1799 church, a modern 20th-century sanctuary, and a parish house. The 1799 church is a log structure, measuring about 32 by 74 feet. It is built out of heavy walnut timbers that were hewn into rectangular shape and mortised into a wooden sill resting on stone slabs. The timbers are each about 14 feet long, one foot wide and six inches thick, and are set about one foot apart. The spaces between them are filled with what was termed pierrotage, a mixture of rubblestone and clay. Each of the walls slopes slightly inward as it rises, and is braced by diagonal timbers. The roof trusses are of walnut and oak, and give the roof a bell-cast appearance. A remarkably unaltered example of the French colonial construction style known as "poteaux-sur-solle" (post-on-sill), and one of the few such buildings surviving in North America. It was declared a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.— holyfamily1699.org—Wikipedia
The old Chain of Rocks Bridge spans the Mississippi River on the north edge of St. Louis, Missouri. The eastern end of the bridge is on Chouteau Island (part of Madison, Illinois), while the western end is on the Missouri shoreline. Its most notable feature is a 22-degree bend occurring at the middle of the crossing. Originally a motor route, the bridge was for a time the route used by the famed Historic Route 66 to cross over the Mississippi, but the bridge now carries only walking and biking trails over the river; the New Chain of Rocks Bridge carries vehicular traffic to the north. The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. The bridge's name comes from a large shoal, or rocky rapids, called the Chain of Rocks, which made that stretch of the Mississippi extremely dangerous to navigate. The Chain of Rocks Bridge was privately built as a toll bridge in 1929 and later turned over to the city of Madison, Illinois, the current owner of the bridge. The Gateway Arch is visible downriver, and immediately downstream from the bridge, two water intakes for the St. Louis Waterworks are visible. One is vaguely Gothic Revival in style; the other closely echoes Roman ruins from Trier in modern Germany.-Wikipedia-This image was processed as an HDR (High Dynamic Range) composition.
The old Chain of Rocks Bridge spans the Mississippi River on the north edge of St. Louis, Missouri. The eastern end of the bridge is on Chouteau Island (part of Madison, Illinois), while the western end is on the Missouri shoreline. Its most notable feature is a 22-degree bend occurring at the middle of the crossing. Originally a motor route, the bridge was for a time the route used by the famed Historic Route 66 to cross over the Mississippi, but the bridge now carries only walking and biking trails over the river; the New Chain of Rocks Bridge carries vehicular traffic to the north. The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. The bridge's name comes from a large shoal, or rocky rapids, called the Chain of Rocks, which made that stretch of the Mississippi extremely dangerous to navigate. The Chain of Rocks Bridge was privately built as a toll bridge in 1929 and later turned over to the city of Madison, Illinois, the current owner of the bridge. The Gateway Arch is visible downriver, and immediately downstream from the bridge, two water intakes for the St. Louis Waterworks are visible. One is vaguely Gothic Revival in style; the other closely echoes Roman ruins from Trier in modern Germany.-Wikipedia-This image was processed as an HDR (High Dynamic Range) composition as well as converted to Black and White.
