Alton, Illinois (usa)

Alton, Illinois

Alton, Illinois ranks 1,841st in number of biographies on Pantheon, behind Gravesend, Rishon LeZion, and Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Memorable people born in Alton, Illinois include Miles Davis, Robert Wadlow, and James Earl Ray. Memorable people who died in Alton, Illinois include Beals Wright. Alton, Illinois has been the birth place of many actors and musicians and the death place of many tennis players. Alton, Illinois is located in United States.

Alton is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about 18 miles (29 km) north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend area in the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. It is famous for its limestone bluffs along the river north of the city, as the former location of the state penitentiary, and for its role preceding and during the American Civil War. It was the site of the last Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate in October 1858. The former state penitentiary in Alton was used during the Civil War to hold up to 12,000 Confederate prisoners of war. Also, the tallest man in history, Robert Wadlow, was born and raised in Alton. Read more on Wikipedia