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The Sam Vadalabene Bike Trail, is a paved 21.5 mile biking/walking trail located in southwestern Illinois, located just north of the St. Louis, Missouri core urban area.
The trail was named after Sam M. Vadalabene, a member of the Illinois Senate. The trail parallels both the Mississippi River and the Meeting of the Great Rivers Scenic Byway and was designated as a National Recreation Trail in 2006. [1] The trail is included as part of the Confluence Greenway.
Salvador Martin "Sam" Vadalabene was an American politician.
The Illinois Senate is the upper chamber of the Illinois General Assembly, the legislative branch of the government of the state of Illinois in the United States. The body was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. The Illinois Senate is made up of 59 senators elected from individual legislative districts determined by population; redistricted every 10 years, based on the 2010 U.S. census each senator represents approximately 217,468 people. Under the Illinois Constitution of 1970, senators are divided into three groups, each group having a two-year term at a different part of the decade between censuses, with the rest of the decade being taken up by two four-year terms. This ensures that the Senate reflects changes made when the General Assembly redistricts itself after each census.
The Mississippi River is the largest river of the United States and the chief river of the second-largest drainage system on the North American continent, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. Its source is Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota and it flows generally south for 2,320 miles (3,730 km) to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km2), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth-longest and fifteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
The south end of the trail is located at Piasa Park, located about five miles northwest of Alton, and the north end of the trail is located at Pere Marquette State Park near Grafton. Other attractions along the trail include the village of Elsah, Chautauqua, the city of Grafton, limestone bluffs rising up to 250 feet (75 m) high, and the Marquette Monument.
The Piasa or Piasa Bird is a Native American dragon depicted in one of two murals painted by Native Americans on bluffs (cliffsides) above the Mississippi River. Its original location was at the end of a chain of limestone bluffs in Madison County, Illinois at present-day Alton, Illinois. The original Piasa illustration no longer exists; a newer 20th-century version, based partly on 19th-century sketches and lithographs, has been placed on a bluff in Alton, Illinois, several hundred yards upstream from its origin. The location of the present-day mural is at 38.898055, -90.19915. The limestone rock quality on the new site is unsuited for holding an image, and the painting must be regularly restored. The original site of the painting was a high-quality layer of lithographic limestone, which was predominantly quarried away in the late 1870s by the Mississippi Lime Company.
Alton is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about 15 miles (24 km) north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 27,865 at the 2010 census. It is a part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. It is famous for its limestone bluffs along the river north of the city, for its role preceding and during the American Civil War, and as the home town of jazz musician Miles Davis and Robert Wadlow, the tallest known person in history. It was the site of the last Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate in October 1858. The former state penitentiary in Alton was used during the Civil War to hold up to 12,000 Confederate prisoners of war.
Pere Marquette State Park is an 8,050-acre (3,260 ha) protected area in southwestern Jersey County, Illinois, United States. It is located near the city of Grafton, Illinois, at the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Illinois River. The park is located on Illinois Route 100, which at this location is also part of both the Great River Road and the Meeting of the Great Rivers Scenic Byway. The park is operated and maintained by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and is Illinois' largest state park in area. The park is also part of the Confluence Greenway and is at the northwestern end of the 21.5-mile (34.6 km) Sam Vadalabene Bike Trail.
The original fifteen miles of the trail were completed in 1979. At the south end of the trail, connections can be made to both the Confluence Trail and the Katy Trail.
The Confluence Trail, part of the Madison County, Illinois Transit (MCT) bikeways network, is an 18.6 mile bike trail between Granite City and Alton, Illinois's Russell Commons Park. The majority of the trail is paved asphalt on top of the Mississippi River levee system. As of August 2013, this trail is in a state of disrepair. The trail is part of the St. Louis metro area's Confluence Greenway.
The Katy Trail State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Missouri that contains the Katy Trail, a recreational rail trail that runs 240 miles (390 km) in the right-of-way of the former Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad. Running largely along the northern bank of the Missouri River, it is the country's longest Rails-to-Trails trail. The trail is open for use by hikers, joggers, and cyclists year-round, from sunrise to sunset. Its hard, flat surface is of "limestone pug".
