Galesburg, Illinois
County: Knox
Location: In a turnout on the north side of US 150,
10 miles southeast of Galesburg
Erected: 03/01/1968 Erected by:
Division of Highways and The Illinois State Historical Society
In 1834, George Washington Gale, Presbyterian minister of Whitesboro,
New York, evolved a plan to form a community and manual labor college
in the Midwest to train missionaries. His original plan was to
purchase a township of Government land at $1.25 an acre, sell it at
$5 an acre, and apply the profits to an endowment for the college and
community. In 1835, a committee of his followers picked the site. In
the next two years settlers established Log City, a temporary town,
and built Galesburg nearby. It was incorporated in 1841 and obtained
the county seat from Knoxville in 1873. Knox College, chartered in
1837, began holding classes in 1838. Knox was strongly influenced by
its religious origins but it gradually broadened its educational
objectives. In 1930 Knox absorbed Lombard College founded by the
Universalists in 1851 as Illinois Liberal Institute. Galesburg was a
center of temperance and anti-slavery movements for many years and it
was an important station on the Underground Railroad before the Civil
War. On October 7, 1858, the fifth Lincoln-Douglas Debate was held on
Knox Campus at 'Old main' which was named a National Historic
Landmark in 1936. Galesburg is the birthplace of Carl Sandburg, noted
poet and Lincoln biographer. His parents were part of a large influx
of Swedish immigrants who settled in Galesburg in the 1850's.
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