Historic Illinois Circuit Court Collections

Material Description

The State of Illinois has 102 counties, each with a clerk of the circuit court, who houses case files dating from the creation of its respective county. Each county courthouse contains hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of court records. The Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission (the Commission) will identify important, famous, representative, and interesting cases from each county. Staff will digitize those case files and will work with each circuit court clerk to transfer those documents to the Illinois State Archives for safe keeping. With Illinois's rich and diverse history featuring prominent lawyers, such as Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Clarence Darrow, and Barack Obama, there will be a wealth of information to obtain for research.