Alton
About Alton
View Alton Apartment ListingsAlton was developed as a river town in 1818 by Rufus Easton, who named the town after his son. He ran a passenger ferry service across the Mississippi River to the opposite Missouri shore. Alton is located amid the confluence of three important navigable rivers: the Illinois, the Mississippi, and the Missouri. Alton grew into a matter-of-fact river town with an industrial character and its steep-sloped streets filled with silos, railroad tracks, brick commercial buildings. Many blocks of housing in Alton were built in the Victorian Queen Anne style, which marks a more successful period of the city’s history. Alton is subject to floods.
North along the river the River Road stretches north to Grafton, a dramatic contrast between the high cliffs of the Illinois side to the broad, flat, green countryside of Portage des Sioux, Missouri. The Great River Road is a popular bicycle tour destination. Hidden in a notch of the cliff is the tiny town of Elsah, Illinois, once a down-and-dirty liquor-soaked tug-boater’s retreat, now reborn as a quaint antique center with trimmed front lawns.