Page "Mounds, Illinois" Paragraph 4

European-Americans settled southern Illinois by traveling along the Ohio River, mostly from the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, and other of the Upper South.

At one time this area of the state was called " Little Dixie " because of the preponderance of southerners.

Because Illinois entered the union as a free state, African-American slaves sometimes escaped to it across the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to freedom, sometimes traveling as far as Canada to ensure they evaded slave catchers.

Other blacks settled in the area in the late nineteenth century because of jobs available with the railroad in Pulaski and Cairo, Illinois.

Mounds had a round house and maintenance jobs associated with the railroad.