Lincoln Park is peppered with statues, some better known than others. Thousands of people drive by this fellow every day, since he overlooks the intersection of two large streets bordering the park, Clark and LaSalle.

Fittingly enough, it’s René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, perched over his namesake street. How many of the passersby know that? I wasn’t sure who it was until I read the plaque, which calls him “Robert Cavelier De La Salle.” Considering we’re talking about a 17th-century Frenchman, both styles are probably OK. The statue was made in Belgium, of all places, designed by one Jacques de La Laing, and was a gift to the city from Lambert Tree, a wealthy Chicagoan and second-tier Illinois politician of an earlier time (died 1910). His more important legacy is the Tree Studio Building.

In some alternate universe, in which Frenchmen took to the Midwest in greater numbers than they really did, and in which France prevailed in the Seven Years’ War, LaSalle might be revered as the forefather of a French-speaking nation stretching from the shores of the Great Lakes to the Mississippi Delta. A country that regularly chaffs against the English-speaking nation on the Eastern Seaboard and the Spanish-speaking one to the west (and Russians in the Pacific Northwest, just for fun), and which also has restive populations both English and Spanish within its borders.

In the world-as-it-is, LaSalle gets a fair amount of recognition anyway. I remember learning about him long ago in Texas History class, since he made it all the way to the future site of Texas before being offed by his own men. Also, a lot of things are named after him — or at least share the name — besides the street, and it’s worth noting that LaSalle St. is a metonym for the financial industry in Chicago.

Deeper into the park, on a small hill in fact – how did that get there? Must have been manmade – is a statue of Richard J. Oglesby, Union general, 14th Governor of Illinois, and U.S. Senator. He’s obscured to the west by a large tree and probably not that easy to see from Lake Shore Drive to the east, though I haven’t tested that assumption. I’m fairly sure obscure applies to him generally speaking, though I’ll have to ask someone who went to Illinois public schools back when such a thing as Illinois History was taught, and see if he was mentioned.

In any case, the statue is the work of sculptor Leonard Crunelle, a protégé of Lorado Taft, and was dedicated in 1919, when there were still people who remembered Oglesby (he died in 1899). In Decatur (Ill.), I understand, his home is a museum, and the town of Oglesby in LaSalle County, which is north-central Illinois, is named after him.