Bald Knob Cross of Peace

The story of Bald Knob Cross began in the 1930s, when local families gathered on the hilltop for Easter sunrise services and dreamed of a permanent monument there. The effort stretched across decades and was famously aided by ordinary people, including the widely told account of a farm woman who donated a bristled sow and its piglets to raise funds, a gift that became part of the cross's founding lore.

The cross was completed and dedicated in 1963 after years of community fundraising and labor. Standing well over a hundred feet tall on the summit, it was built to be seen from far across the hills. In more recent years it was fully restored and reclad in gleaming panels, and it remains a nonprofit landmark that welcomes visitors on a donation basis, open to people of every background.

Bald Knob rises within the Shawnee Hills, a rugged, forested band across the southern tip of the state that stands apart from the flat prairie most people picture when they think of Illinois. These hills were never flattened by the great ice sheets that smoothed the rest of the region, so the land here keeps its ridges, bluffs, and hollows, a landscape closer to the Ozarks than the cornfields to the north.

This is the ancestral country of Native nations of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, including the peoples of the Illinois Confederacy, whose descendants today are enrolled in the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, along with the Shawnee and others. The high knobs like Bald Knob have long been landmarks in this rolling country, and the modern cross simply added a new one to a horizon already full of them.

The reward of the climb is the view. From the ridgetop the Shawnee Hills roll away in wave after forested wave, and the exposed summit gives a nearly full-circle panorama that on clear days is said to reach into neighboring states. Sunrise and sunset are the favored hours, when the low light rakes across the hills and the white cross glows.

Because the summit is so open, the weather is part of the experience. Wind sweeps the ridge, clouds move fast overhead, and the temperature runs cooler than in the valleys below, so a layer is welcome even on a warm day. It is the kind of place where you linger just to watch the light change over the hills.

The cross sits in the middle of some of the most scenic country in Illinois. The Shawnee Hills wine trail winds through the valleys nearby, its vineyards and tasting rooms drawing visitors through the warmer months, and orchards and small farms dot the ridges around Alto Pass and Cobden.

The surrounding Shawnee National Forest offers deeper adventures, from the sculpted sandstone of the Garden of the Gods to the bluffs and trails of Giant City State Park. A visit to Bald Knob pairs easily with a slow loop through this hill country, one of the least expected and most rewarding corners of the state.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.