Fort de Chartres hosts 45th Annual Rendezvous
<span>PRAIRIE DU ROCHER -- Fort de Chartes held its 45th annual Rendezvous reenactment June 6-7, while simultaneously saying goodbye to some of the people that put it on every year.</span>
<span>The meeting actually started in 1969, but it became an official event in the following year.</span>
<span>"Rendezvous was officially started in 1970 by a man named Dean Campbell along with the help of the Illinois Historical Society," said Site Superintendent Darrell Duensing, who will be retiring this year after more than 40 years of running the event.</span>
<span>The Rendezvous, now one of the largest reenactments around, started out as only a small shooting match.</span>
<span>The original gun club at Rendezvous was the Jackson County Anti Horse and Mule Thief Society.</span>
<span>The attendants would come to shoot and celebrate, but were not allowed to camp, so they would then camp at Fort Kaskaskia. </span>
<span>After Rendezvous started growing, the gun clubs of the surrounding area got involved and were eventually allowed to camp at the actual fort.</span>
<span>"It just started becoming more and more popular, and somehow we ended up with insanely large crowds like today," said Ted Mueller, one of the first people to be at Rendezvous.</span>
<span>The Rendezvous was becoming popular amongst the locals and the people who regularly participated in different reenactments in the surrounding areas.</span>
<span>"In 1993, we had cars backed up all the way to the railroad tracks," Duensing said. "We used to have easily 30,000 people coming."</span>
<span>With the large number of people in attendance, it was a shame to have to officially cancel the gathering due to the Flood of 1993.</span>
<span>"Everything was still underwater," Duensing said. "We had no where for people to park, we just had to cancel it."</span>
<span>In 1995, Rendezvous was able to go back into business, and the date had officially been moved to the first weekend of June.</span>
<span>Even with the fluctuating amount of attendees, the campers and reenactors come for the love of history.</span>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-1368d0e9-d5bd-e3b7-d84d-e92273b41dc4"><span>"Living like these nomadic people is amazing, because you can continue to live and support yourself, if those who are reliant on the current day's technologies can't," said Don "Skinner" Schilling, who was one of the first men to partake Rendezvous. "The best part is sharing the history and bringing it back to life - the old ways of cooking, the hunting, everything."</span></span>