Buffalo Rock State Park & Effigy Tumuli is an Illinois state park on in LaSalle County, Illinois, United States. The park is located in LaSalle County next to Starved Rock State Park, and was once used as a "blind canyon" for Indians to capture buffalo. Effigy Tumuli consists of five earth art animal sculptures native to the Illinois River was constructed as a tribute to Native American tradition. The park is located 5mi east of Utica, Illinois (Starved Rock State Park), and approximately 85mi southwest of Chicago, Illinois. Now, this sandstone bluff carved by the Illinois River during the Pleistocene epoch, serves as a State Park for local residents and tourists.HistoryThe area of Buffalo Rock was the home of the Illinois Indians when Louis Jolliet, the French explorer, and the Jesuit missionary priest Father Jacques Marquette made their trip up the Illinois River in 1673. Later, the Illinois Tribe was virtually annihilated in protracted warfare with the aggressive Iroquois.Buffalo Rock State Park served as an early military, trading, and missionary post for the French. During the winter of 1682-1683, LaSalle and Tonty built Fort St. Louis on Starved Rock, and gathered 4,000 Indian warriors at Buffalo Rock to form a confederation against the Iroquois. The Miami, one of the tribes in the confederation, built their own fort on Buffalo Rock.
