page_title: Fort de Chartres
section_title: Reconstruction
hierarchical_section_title: Fort de Chartres / History / Reconstruction
caption_attribution_description: Fort de Chartres powder magazine building
context_page_description: Fort de Chartres was a French fortification first built in 1720 on the east bank of the Mississippi River in present-day Illinois. It was used as an administrative center for the province. Due generally to river floods, the fort was rebuilt twice, the last time in limestone in the 1750s in the era of French colonial control over Louisiana and the Illinois Country.
  A partial reconstruction exists of this third and last fort. The site is now preserved as an Illinois state park and is four miles west of Prairie du Rocher in Randolph County, Illinois. It is south of St. Louis, Missouri in the floodplain area that became known as the American Bottom. The site and its associated buildings were placed on the National Register of Historic Places and recognized as a National Historic Landmark on October 15, 1966, and it was named one of the contributing properties to the new French Colonial Historic District in 1974, along with other area French-influenced sites such as the Creole House, the Pierre Menard House, the Kolmer Site, and the site of Fort Kaskaskia.
  The name of the fort honored Louis, duc de Chartres, son of the Regent of France.
context_section_description: The State of Illinois acquired the ruins in 1913 as a historic site and restored the powder magazine in 1917. The powder magazine is thought to be the oldest existing building in the state of Illinois. In the 1920s the foundations of the fort's buildings and walls were exposed. In the late 1920s and through the 1930s, the US WPA rebuilt the gateway and two stone buildings.
  A combination museum and office building, constructed in 1928 on the foundation of an original fort building, houses exhibits depicting French life at Fort de Chartres. The large stone "Guards House," reconstructed in 1936, contains a Catholic chapel furnished in the style of the 1750s, along with a priest's room, a gunner's room, an officer-of-the-day room, and a guard's room. Also on the grounds are an operating bake oven, a garden shed built of upright logs in French Colonial poteaux-sur-sol (French: "post on sill") construction, and a kitchen garden with raised beds of produce typical of French 18th-century Illinois.
  Partial reconstruction of the fort's walls on the original foundations followed in 1989. The frames of some additional buildings were erected as a display of the post-and-beam construction techniques used for the originals. Other buildings' foundations and cellars were exposed for educational display as well.
  Today the site has a museum and small gift shop. It plays host each June to a Rendezvous that is said to be one of the largest and oldest in the country, celebrating frontier French and Indian culture.
  The site is protected by modern levees, but the Mississippi River is still an occasional menace. The flood of 1993 breached the levee and sent waters fifteen feet deep to lap at the top of the walls.
caption: The fort's powder magazine, here restored, is thought to be the oldest standing building in Illinois.
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