LaSalle Celebrates Irish Roots Along Historic Canal

LaSalle will celebrate its Irish roots and canal heritage on Saturday, March 14, during Digger’s Day, a free, downtown event honoring the laborers who built the Illinois and Michigan Canal and helped establish the city.

All activities are free and open to the public. The day begins from 10:00–10:30 a.m. with a morning blessing and brief history of the saint and the early LaSalle catholic community at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church (725 Fourth Street), followed by live Irish fiddle music by Irish-trained Sarah Arter at 11:00 a.m at the I&M Canal Visitor Center (754 First Street). Downtown restaurants will feature Irish lunch fare before the First Street Parade steps off from 1:00–2:00 p.m. along First Street from Bucklin to LaHarpe Streets. Storytelling from 2:00–3:00 p.m. at the I&M Canal Visitor Center (754 First Street) will highlight Irish folklore and canal-era history told by Tricia Kelly, and the celebration concludes at 3:15 p.m. with a ceremony dyeing the Fountain at First and Gooding Streets green in honor of the Irish diggers. Visitors may also enjoy decorated window displays as part of a window decorating contest for downtown businesses.

Downtown businesses will join the celebration with festive food and drink specials inspired by Irish tradition and canal history. Chef Sara’s Table will feature reubens, Irish-inspired soups, Irish charcuterie boards, and other specialties. Millstone Bakery will be open for lunch featuring Dublin Coddle stew, Irish soda bread, colcannon and bacon danish, Irish cream mousse danish, Irish apple cake, and decorated sugar cookies. Lock 16 Café will have lunch with canal diggers soup, reubens and rachels (turkey reuben), and a lucky leprechaun mint shake. Additional offerings from other businesses, including Uptown, will be available throughout the day, inviting visitors to explore and linger along First Street.

Long before railroads crossed the prairie or smokestacks rose along the river, LaSalle began with picks, shovels, and determined hands carving a waterway through rock and earth. Completed in 1848, the canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River system and transformed northern Illinois into a center of trade and settlement. Nearly ten thousand immigrant laborers—many newly arrived from Ireland, some even before the Great Famine—endured dangerous conditions to dig the canal by hand.

They faced backbreaking labor, prejudice, and disease. Cholera outbreaks swept through shantytowns along the canal route, including in LaSalle, claiming hundreds of workers. Paid about a dollar a day and often in canal scrip redeemable for land, many remained after construction ended, turning from laborers to farmers and founders, and choosing to make LaSalle their permanent home.

In its early years, LaSalle’s population was nearly 50 percent Irish. Today Irish ancestry remains about 15 percent. The Irish community established a lasting Catholic presence, including St. Patrick’s Church, believed to be the oldest continuously active Catholic parish in Illinois, as well as historic cemeteries such as St. Vincent’s.

Digger’s Day is not simply a St. Patrick’s observance, but a remembrance of the people who literally built the city and whose legacy still shapes LaSalle today.

The event is hosted by the LaSalle Business Association and sponsored by Millstone Bakery, JB Contracting Corp. Electrical/Mechanical Contractors, LaSalle State Bank, and Just Needs Done Enterprises. Both Millstone Bakery and LaSalle State Bank trace their origins to Irish ancestors who arrived in the community in 1836 and 1840 — a reminder that LaSalle’s canal story is not distant history, but living heritage.