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Monroe County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it had a population of 32,957.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/17/17133.html )〕 Its county seat and largest city is Waterloo.〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=2011-06-07 )〕 Monroe County is included in the St. Louis, MO-IL Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is located in the southern portion of Illinois known locally as "Little Egypt". ==History== Indigenous peoples lived along the Mississippi River and related waterways for thousands of years before European contact. French Jesuit priests in the Illinois Country encountered the Kaskaskia and Cahokia, bands of the Illiniwek confederacy. The first European settlement in this area was St. Philippe, founded in 1723 by Philippe François Renault, a French courtier, on his concession about three miles north of Fort de Chartres along the Mississippi River. This early agricultural community quickly produced a surplus, and grains were sold to the lower Louisiana colony for years. They were integral to that community's survival, as its climate did not allow cultivation of such staple grains. After the American Revolution, Monroe County was formed in 1816 out of Randolph and St. Clair counties, as the 8th county created from the then Illinois Territory. Beginning on the Mississippi River where the base line, which is about three-fourths of a mile below Judge Briggs's present residence, strikes the said river; thence with the base line until it strikes the first township line therefrom; thence southeast to the southeast corner of township two south, range nine west; thence south to the southeast corner of township four north, range nine west; thence southwestwardly to the Mississippi, so as to include Alexander McNabb's farm, and thence up the Mississippi to the beginning shall constitute a separate county, to be called MONROE. It was named in honor of James Monroe, who had just served as United States Secretary of War and who was elected President later that same year. Its first county seat was Harrisonville, named for William Henry Harrison, former governor of the Northwest Territory and future President. Harrison invested in several tracts of land in the American Bottoms above Harrisonville, mostly in the present precinct of Moredock, ownership of which he retained until his death.〔''Combined History of Randolph, Monroe and Perry Counties, Illinois,'' J. L. McDonough & Co., Philadelphia, 1883〕 Waterloo was designated as the mantle of county seat in 1825. The sites of the colonial towns of St. Philippe and Harrisonville were submerged by the Mississippi River, in flooding caused by deforestation of river banks during the steamboat years. Crews cut so many trees that banks destabilized and collapsed in the current, making the river wider and more shallow from St. Louis to the confluence with the Ohio River. This change caused more severe flooding, as well as lateral channel changes, such as the one that cut off the village of Kaskaskia from the Illinois mainland.〔F. Terry Norris, "Where Did the Villages Go? Steamboats, Deforestation, and Archaeological Loss in the Mississippi Valley", in ''Common Fields: An Environmental History of St. Louis'', Andrew Hurley, ed., St. Louis, MO: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1997, pp. 73-89〕 An unincorporated community of Harrisonville was re-established east of the original site. The bounds of Monroe County in 1816 did not include Precincts 1 and 6 (village of Hecker and Prairie du Long), Precinct 1 and most of 6 was added in 1825 from St. Clair County.〔"(Counties of Illinois pg. 46-47 )". 1825 Retrieved on January 22, 2008.〕 The strip of Precinct 6 from the survey township line east to the Kaskaskia was added, once again from St. Clair, two years later in 1827.〔"(Counties of Illinois, pg. 49-50 )". 1827 Retrieved on January 22, 2008.〕 Some minor adjustments and clarifications of the boundaries have taken place, but the borders have remained essentially static since 1827. File:Monroe County Illinois 1816.png|Monroe County from the time of its creation to 1825 File:Monroe County Illinois 1825.png|Monroe County between 1825 and 1827 File:Monroe County Illinois 1827.png|In 1827, an adjustment to Monroe County's border with St. Clair brought it to its present territory 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Monroe County, Illinois」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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