Corn was an important crop for peop

Corn was an important crop for people who lived in
the area that became Illinois before the Europeans
first set foot here; it was the staple food crop of the people
who lived in the Cahokia area some 1,000 years ago. It
was a crop of choice when Europeans settled and started
to farm in Illinois, and acreage in the state first reached 10
million acres in 1895. Acreage over the past 100 years has
ranged from about 7 to 13 million acres and is now about
50% of the row-cropped acres in the state.