Alton, Illinois in the context of "Francis B. Murdoch"

Madison County is located in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is a part of the Metro East in southern Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 264,776, making it the eighth-most populous county in Illinois and the most populous in the southern portion of the state. The county seat is Edwardsville, and the largest city is Granite City.

Madison County is part of the Metro East region of Greater St. Louis. The pre-Columbian city of Cahokia Mounds, a World Heritage Site, was located near Collinsville. Edwardsville is home to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. To the north, Alton is known for its abolitionist and American Civil War-era history. It is also the home of the Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine. Godfrey, the village named for Captain Benjamin Godfrey, offers Lewis and Clark Community College formerly the Monticello Female Seminary.

Robert Pershing Wadlow (February 22, 1918 – July 15, 1940), also known as the Alton Giant and the Giant of Illinois, was an American man. He is the tallest person in recorded history for whom there is irrefutable evidence. Wadlow was born and raised in Alton, Illinois, a small city near St. Louis, Missouri.

Wadlow's height was 8 ft 11.1 in (2.72 m) while his weight reached 439 lb (199 kg) at his death at age 22. His great size and his continued growth in adulthood were due to hypertrophy of his pituitary gland, which results in an abnormally high level of human growth hormone (HGH).

The bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas), also known as the Zambezi shark (informally zambi) in Africa and Lake Nicaragua shark in Nicaragua, is a species of requiem shark commonly found worldwide in warm, shallow waters along coasts and in rivers. It is known for its aggressive nature, and presence mainly in warm, shallow brackish and freshwater systems including estuaries and (usually) lower reaches of rivers. Their aggressive nature has led to ongoing shark-culling efforts near beaches to protect beachgoers, which is one of the causes of bull shark populations continuing to decrease. Bull sharks are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.

Bull sharks are euryhaline and can thrive in both salt and fresh water. They are known to travel far up rivers, and have been known to travel up the Mississippi River as far as Alton, Illinois, about 1,100 kilometres (700 mi) from the ocean, but few freshwater interactions with humans have been recorded. Larger-sized bull sharks are probably responsible for the majority of nearshore shark attacks, including many incidents of shark bites attributed to other species.

Southern Illinois is a region of the U.S. state of Illinois comprising the southern third of the state, principally south of Interstate 70. Part of downstate Illinois, it is bordered by the two most voluminous rivers in the United States: the Mississippi below its connection with the Missouri River to the west and the Ohio River to the east and south, with the tributary Wabash River, extending the southeastern border. Some areas of Southern Illinois are known historically as Little Egypt. Although part of the Midwest, certain areas of Southern Illinois more closely align culturally with neighboring parts of the Upland South (i.e. Kentucky, Tennessee, Southern Indiana, and Missouri).

Southern Illinois' most populated city is Belleville at 44,478. Other principal cities include Alton, Centralia, Collinsville, Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Godfrey, Granite City, O'Fallon, Harrisburg, Herrin, West Frankfort, Mt. Vernon, Marion, and Carbondale, where the main campus of Southern Illinois University is located. Residents may also commute to St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Evansville, Indiana; and Paducah, Kentucky. The region is home to Scott Air Force Base, a major military installation.

Southern Illinois University School of Dental Medicine is an academic unit of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) located in Alton, Illinois, United States, in the Greater St. Louis area. The school is one of three dental schools in the state of Illinois and is mandated with the mission "to improve the oral health of the people of Southern Illinois and the region through education, patient care, scholarship and service".

A part of the Southern Illinois University system, the school has nearly 200 students (about 50 in each entering class) and provides a fully accredited and nationally recognized dental education.

Benjamin Godfrey (December 4, 1794 – August 13, 1862) was an American merchant and philanthropist from Massachusetts who is known for his work in the Illinois region. Running away to Ireland at a young age, Godfrey worked on ships in his early life, eventually commanding his own. This vessel was wrecked off the coast of Mexico, but Godfrey found wealth in a trading house in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. However, he was robbed and returned to the U.S. penniless.

He moved to Alton, Illinois, where he co-founded a successful complex of groceries in the region with Winthrop Sargent Gilman. Godfrey became involved with the Presbytery and established Monticello Seminary for women, now known as Lewis and Clark Community College. He is the namesake of Godfrey, Illinois, where the college is located, and the Benjamin Godfrey Memorial Chapel found there.

Lewis and Clark Community College is a public community college in Godfrey, Illinois. It serves approximately 3,973 credit and non-credit students annually. The college has nine locations throughout the St. Louis Metro East, including a campus and humanities center in Edwardsville, Illinois; community education centers in Alton, Illinois, Carlinville, Illinois and Jerseyville, Illinois; a training center in Bethalto, Illinois; a river research center in East Alton, Illinois; and a location at the East St. Louis Higher Education Center in East St. Louis, Illinois. Lewis and Clark community college has career and transfer study options. The college also offers personal enrichment programming for adults and children, as well as corporate and safety training options for professionals.

The American Bottom is the flood plain of the Mississippi River in the Metro East region of Southern Illinois, extending from Alton, Illinois, south to the Kaskaskia River. It is also sometimes called "American Bottoms". The area is about 175 square miles (450 km), mostly protected from flooding in the 21st century by a levee and drainage canal system. Immediately across the river from St. Louis, Missouri, are industrial and urban areas, but nearby marshland, swamps, and the Horseshoe Lake (which was created by the river) are reminders of the Bottoms' riparian nature.

This plain with its rich alluvial soil, served as the center for the pre-Columbian Cahokia Mounds civilization, and later the French settlement of Illinois Country. Deforestation of the river banks in the 19th century to fuel steamboats had dramatic environmental effects in this region. The Mississippi River between St. Louis and the confluence with the Ohio River became wider and more shallow, as unstable banks collapsed into the water. This resulted in more severe flooding and lateral changes of the major channel, causing the destruction of several French colonial towns, such as Kaskaskia, which relocated; Cahokia, and St. Philippe, Illinois.