The Prairie State
This familiar nickname for Illinois dates back at least as far as 1842. Most of the state was once covered with prairie grasses. Today, Illinois continues to pay homage to the prairie. According to the Illinois Compiled Statutes, Illinois has designated the third full week of September as Illinois Prairie Week "...to be observed throughout the State as a week for holding appropriate events and observances in the public schools and elsewhere to demonstrate the value of preserving and reestablishing native Illinois prairies."
Land of Lincoln
This name refers to Illinois as the state where Abraham Lincoln began his political career. This name is the Official State Slogan of Illinois, designated in 1955. In the same year, the U.S. Congress granted Illinois a special copyright for exclusive use of the "Land of Lincoln" insignia. Though Lincoln was born in Kentucky and lived in Indiana before moving to Illinois, it was in Illinois where young Abraham Lincoln began his political career with an unsuccessful run for the Illinois General Assembly in 1832. Lincoln eventually was elected to four terms in the Illinois General Assembly and served from 1834-1841. Illinois was also where Lincoln lived when he became President of the United States in 1861.
The Corn State
An appropriate nickname for a state where corn plays such an important role in the agricultural economy. Illinois is one of the leading producers of corn in the country. The region of the country referred to as the Corn Belt is centered in Iowa and Illinois.
The Garden of the West
This old nickname came about because of the rolling prairies of Illinois and the miles of cultivated fields that made Illinois one of the leading producers of corn and later, soy beans, in the United States. A similar term, "The Garden State" was sometimes heard.
The Sucker State
There are a few of theories about the origin of this interesting nickname. One has it that the name was the result of a comparison between the large number of miners going to and coming from the Galena Lead Mines in 1822 and the fish. According to Malcolm Townsend, in his U.S.: An Index to the United States of America (1890), "An old miner said to them 'Ye put me in [the] mind of suckers, they do go up the river in the spring spawn, and all return down ag'in in the fall.'"
Malcolm Townsend talks about another possible origin of the nickname. Evidently, the prairies were filled, in many places by crawfish holes. Travelers were able to suck cool pure water from these holes using long, hollow reeds. According to Malcolm Townsend, whenever a traveler would happen upon one of these holes, he would cry out "A sucker, a sucker!"
Yet another theory, offered by former Governor Thomas Ford in A History of Illinois (1854), has it that this nickname referred to the poor folk of southern Illinois that moved into the state to escape the suppression of wealthy landowners in the southern states. According to Ford, sucker was a reference to the sprouts off the main stem and roots of tobacco plants. These suckers will sap nutrients from the main plant and are stripped off by farmers and thrown away. In the same way, according to Ford, "These poor emigrants from the slave States were jeeringly and derisively called "suckers," because there were asserted to be a burthen upon the people of wealth; and when they removed to Illinois they were supposed to have stripped themselves off from the parent stem and gone away to perish like the "sucker" of the tobacco plant. This name was given to the Illinoisans at the Galena mines by the Missourians."
Egypt
This nickname referred to the southern end of Illinois. It is thought that the nickname for this fertile soil around Cairo, Illinois was a reference to the fertile soil or Cairo, Egypt after the Nile has flooded. The nickname may have also been related to the city name as well.
Source: http://www.netstate.com/states/intro/il_intro.htm
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Bonus: Camp Misery. Camp Misery, located off the bank of the Rappahannock River on Ship Point Road in Stafford County, Virginia, was a Union Camp established in 1861. It was originally known as Camp Butler, but earned the name Camp Misery because of the horrific winter in 1862 that the soldiers experienced.
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