Annual Founders’ Day Picnic

Commemorate the epic voyage of Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette and five other men that traversed the Fox, Wisconsin, Mississippi, and Illinois Rivers on their expedition to discover the Great River, the Mississippi, and prove that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. Mark Walczynski is Park Historian for the Starved Rock Foundation located at Starved Rock State Park, Utica, Illinois. Mark’s studies focus on the Franco-Amerindian history of the Western Great Lakes and the Illinois Country. Mark has written several books including Jolliet and Marquette: A New History of the 1673 Expedition, and has also been published in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Le Journal, Michigan’s Habitant Heritage, and American Heritage