Prairie du Rocher
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Prairie du Rocher ("Prairie of the Rock" in French) is a small town founded in the French colonial period in the American Midwest. The town is located near bluffs that flank the east side of the Mississippi River, in the area once called the "American Bottom" in reference to its rich bottomland soil.
Prairie du Rocher, now part of Randolph County, Illinois, is one of the oldest communities founded as a French settlement that survives in the 21st century. The nearby Fort de Chartres, site of a French military fortification and colonial headquarters established in 1720, is now a state park and historical site. The fort and town were a center of government and commerce at the time when France claimed a vast territory in North America, New France, which stretched from Louisiana and the Illinois Country to Canada.
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