ABSTRACT

The Cities of the Prairie have advanced onto the fourth frontier along with the rest of the country, each of them at its own pace. During the third century of the rural-land frontier, American westering produced the Cities of the Prairie. The first of them were founded in what became the complex of settlements in south western Illinois across the Mississippi River from St. Louis and along the fringes of the prairie in central Illinois. The opening of the new frontier made it possible for high-tech-oriented Californians to resettle themselves throughout the mountain west, in effect transferring their residences to the western parts of cyberspace. A new sectional arrangement was forming. If the Deep South was the cutting edge of southern expansion, the Deep North was the bottom of rustbelt depression, whether in New England or in the Upper Midwest. Duluth and Superior, among the Cities of the Prairie, belonged to the Deep North and they suffered accordingly.