The Village sits astride the famous Sauk Trail which was used by the Sauk and Pottawatomie tribes for moving between settlements and sacred areas stretching all the way from the Mississippi around the Rock Island area all the way to what is now Ottowa, Canada.  The trail was also used by settlers. When the Illinois Central railroad was built, the intersection of the two became a very busy area, laying the foundation of the beginnings of Richton Park. When Missouri was a territory and was petitioning to become a state many wagon trains of settlers would go west to Missouri on Sauk Trail to make sure that state entered the Union as a free state and not a state that supported slavery. And many years before the Civil War started, Sauk Trail was part of the underground railroad that secretly transported many slaves to their freedom in Canada.