Editing Wabash County, Illinois (section)

==History==
Wabash County was formed in 1824 out of [[Edwards County, Illinois|Edwards County]]. This averted to an armed confrontation between the militias of [[Albion, Illinois|Albion]] and [[Mount Carmel, Illinois|Mt. Carmel]] after the county seat was moved from a town near the current city of Mount Carmel to Albion.

The county is named for the [[Wabash River]], which forms its eastern and southern borders. The name "Wabash" is an English spelling of the French name for the river, ''"Ouabache."''' French traders named the river after the [[Miami (tribe)|Miami Indian]] word for the river, ''"Wabashike,"'' (pronounced "Wah-bah-she-keh"), the word for "pure white." Much of the river bottom is white limestone, now obscured by mud.
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File:Wabash County Illinois 1824.png|Wabash County at the time of its creation in 1824
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A {{convert|329|acre|km2}} remnant of the county's original Eastern Woodlands [[ecosystem]] can be found in the ''Forest of the Wabash'', located within the county's [[Beall Woods State Park]].

In the 1920s a notable hotel and resort operated in Wabash County nearby the Grand Rapids Dam on the Wabash River. Named the [[Grand Rapids Hotel]], it was owned by [[Frederick Hinde Zimmerman]]. During the hotel's nine-year existence, it catered to individuals from all over the United States. In July 2011, John Matthew Nolan published a detailed history of the Grand Rapids Hotel.

===Earthquake===
{{main|2008 Illinois earthquake}}
On the morning of April 18, 2008, at 4:37am local time, one of the largest earthquakes in Illinois history hit the area. The epicenter of this tremor was in Lick Prairie Township, near the middle of the county. The tremor was felt for a wide radius, more than 400 miles away in Nebraska.<ref name="SuhrSFChron">{{cite web |url= http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/04/18/national/a025745D02.DTL |title= 5.2 earthquake rattles skyscrapers, nerves across Midwest |author= Jim Suhr, [[Associated Press]] |work= [[San Francisco Chronicle]] |date= April 18, 2008 |quote= It was the kind of tremor that might be ignored in earthquake-savvy California, but the temblor shook things up from [[Nebraska]] to Atlanta and rattled nerves in [[Milwaukee, Wisconsin|Milwaukee]], [[Cincinnati, Ohio|Cincinnati]] and [[Louisville, Kentucky|Louisville, Ky.]], where bricks toppled to the pavement... Dozens of [[aftershock]]s followed, including one with a magnitude of 4.6. }}</ref>