Excerpt from Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, Vol. 2
State Bank of Illinois. The first legislation, having for its object the establishment of a bank within the territory which now constitutes the State of Illinois, was the passage, by the Territorial Legislature of 1816, of an act incorporating the "Bank of Illinois at Shawneetown, with branches at Edwardsville and Kaskaskia." In the second General Assembly of the State (1820) an act was passed, over the Governor's veto and in defiance of the adverse judgment of the Council of Revision, establishing a State Bank at Vandalia with branches at Shawneetown, Edwardsville, and Brownsville in Jackson County. This was, in effect, a rechartering of the banks at Shawneetown and Edwardsville. So far as the former is concerned, it seems to have been well managed; but the official conduct of the officers of the latter, on the basis of charges made by Governor Edwards in 1826, was made the subject of a legislative investigation, which (although it resulted in nothing) seems to have had some basis of fact, in view of the losses finally sustained in winding up its affairs - that of the General Government amounting to $54,000. Grave charges were made in this connection against men who were then, or afterwards became, prominent in State affairs, including one Justice of the Supreme Court and one (still later) a United States Senator. The experiment was disastrous, as ten years later (1831), it was found necessary for the State to incur a debt of $100,000 to redeem the outstanding circulation. Influenced, however, by the popular demand for an increase in the "circulating medium," the State continued its experiment of becoming a stock-holder in banks, managed by its citizens, and accordingly we find it, in 1835, legislating in the same direction for the establishing of a central "Bank of Illinois" at Springfield, with branches at other points as might be required, not to exceed six in number. One of these branches was established at Vandalia and another at Chicago, furnishing the first banking institution of the latter city. Two years later, when the State was entering upon its scheme of internal improvement, laws were enacted increasing the capital stock of these banks to $4,000,000 in the aggregate. Following the example of similar institutions elsewhere, they suspended specie payments a few months later, but were protected by "stay laws" and other devices until 1842, when, the internal improvement scheme having been finally abandoned, they fell in general collapse. The State ceased to be a stock-holder in 1843, and the banks were put in course of liquidation, though it required several years, to complete the work.
State Capitals. The first State capital of Illinois was Kaskaskia, where the first Territorial Legislature convened, Nov. 25, 1812. At that time there were but five counties in the State - St. Clair and Randolph being the most important, and Kaskaskia being the county-seat of the latter. Illinois was admitted into the Union as a State in 1818, and the first Constitution provided that the seat of government should remain at Kaskaskia until removed by legislative enactment. That instrument, however, made it obligatory upon the Legislature, at its first session, to petition Congress for a grant of not more than four sections of land, on which should be erected a town, which should remain the seat of government for twenty years. The petition was duly presented and granted; and, in accordance with the power granted by the Constitution, a Board of five Commissioners selected the site of the present city of Vandalia, then a point in the wilderness, twenty miles north of any settlement. But so great was the faith of speculators in the future of the proposed city, that town lots were soon selling at $100 to $780 each. The Commissioners, in obedience to law, erected a plain two-story frame building - scarcely more than a commodious shanty - to which the State office... Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint) (Newton Bateman)