Both of these styles involve construction of walls consisting of vertical logs, the former placed directly into the ground, and the latter onto a horizontal sill of wood or stone.

It became the principle civic center of the region, and continued to be so when the area passed into Spanish control with the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

Genevieve, about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of the present city, was severely damaged by major flooding in 1785.

The agricultural area just outside the city to the southeast is largely still laid out as it was at that time, following traditional French colonial lines.

Late in the 19th century, the manufacture of lime became a major local industry, and in 1904 the city became the western end of a railroad ferry, connecting to Kellogg, Illinois.

The state has stepped in to acquire several of the older buildings for preservation and interpretation as historic sites.

In 1970, the designation was amended to set a boundary, encompassing about 1,200 acres (490 ha), including much of the town and river bottomlands that reflected French colonial land-use methods.

Repeated attempts to further update the landmark designation, including an explicit enumeration of contributing and non-contributing properties, have been made (in 1975, 1986, and 2001), but none of these have passed review.

As part of the 2001 work, a separate National Register nomination was prepared, approved in 2002 by the Park Service, that focused on the area's broader historical patterns.