The resulting town was Grafton, Illinois. Louis businessmen planned to build a competing town to stop Alton's expansion and bring business to St. The former state penitentiary in Alton was used during the Civil War to hold up to 12,000 Confederate prisoners of war.Īlthough Alton once was growing faster than the nearby city of St. It was the site of the last Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate in October 1858. It is famous for its limestone bluffs along the river north of the city, as the former location of the state penitentiary, and for its role preceding and during the American Civil War. It is a part of the River Bend area in the Metro-East region of the Greater St. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 census.

Alton ( / ˈ ɔː l t ən/ AWL-tən) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about 18 miles (29 km) north of St.