Prairie passage

by Edward Ranney

Prairie Passage celebrates the remarkable ninety-seven-mile water highway known as the Illinois and Michigan Canal, completed in 1848 and closed in 1933, that helped turn the muddy settlement of Chicago into the most important city in the Midwest. The photographs in Prairie Passage, which provide a fresh perspective on how we use and live on the land, are complemented by historical images and essays that document how people have traveled through, settled, and altered the region, as well as by a prologue that puts the Canal Corridor in a national context of regional conservation movements and an epilogue that offers a personal statement on the resonance of special places for those who care about the American landscape.