On Dec. 12, 1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark built Camp River Dubois near present day Wood River in Madison County.

Lewis and Clark, along with their Corps of Discovery, spent several months in what would become the state of Illinois, originally crossing into the territory with 20 men on Nov. 11, 1803.

They stayed for two days at Fort Massac, near Metropolis, where they resupplied and solicited volunteers to assist them on their journey. Among those who joined the expedition was George Drouillard, a man of Shawnee and French descent who became the party’s best hunter and interpreter.

Lewis and Clark’s team traveled through southern Illinois along the Ohio River and then north along the Mississippi River, stopping in Kaskaskia on Dec. 28 to recruit 12 more volunteers before continuing to present-day Wood River to set up camp.

Helen Scott Hay, a trailblazing nurse who served with the American Red Cross during World War I and trained nurses all over the world, has deep ties to northwestern Illinois.

Hay was born in 1869 in Lanark, a town in Carroll County in northwestern Illinois. Affectionately called “Nettie” by her family, she attended Savanna High School, today known as West Carroll High School.

After graduation, she earned a degree from Northwestern University in Evanston before attending Illinois Training School for Nurses in Chicago and graduating at the top of her class. Trained nursing was a relatively new occupation at the time, and the nursing school was founded by prominent progressive women who saw a need to improve nursing care for Chicago’s sick poor. Students did much of their training at Cook County Hospital. From 1906 to 1912, Hay was superintendent of the nursing school.