By 1711, agriculture bloomed as Jesuits and French tilled the fertile bottom around the Kaskaskia settlement, providing much-needed wheat and corn to New France. This was the beginning of agriculture in Illinois. Today, more than 220,000 acres of wheat, corn, and soybeans are grown annually in Randolph County.
Civil government emerged for the new province of Illinois and the territory was formally annexed, becoming part of Louisiana. In 1720, Pierre Dugué de Boisbriand built the first Fort de Chartres. In 1722, St. Thérèse Langlois, Boisbriand’s nephew, founded Prairie du Rocher on a tract of land donated by the Royal Indian Company. In 1735, the Melliere Family built a home in Prairie du Rocher. That dwelling is preserved, and remains in the Melliere family to this day. Prairie du Rocher is one of the oldest extant French-founded villages in the United States.
In 1714, a stone church replaced the original log chapel in the Village of Kaskaskia. Installed later in the steeple was a gift from King Louis XV of France, a bell for the Mission of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. Known as the Liberty Bell of the West, the 275-year-old sounder is today securely housed in a shrine near the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Kaskaskia Island. Many visit the bell each year.