Dixon, Illinois
County: Lee
Location: Rest area on the south side of IL 2 or US
Alt. 30, 3.5 miles west of Dixon
Erected: 02/01/1968 Erected by:
Division of Highways and The Illinois State Historical Society
In 1828 Joseph Ogee established a ferry across the Rock River where
Dixon now stands. In 1830, John Dixon, postmaster, moved to the site
with his family to operate the ferry which had prospered because of
its location on the trail between the Galena lead mines and Peoria.
The name of the small settlement was soon changed from Ogee's Ferry
to Dixon's Ferry. John Dixon --'Father Dixon' to the settlers and
'Nachusa' (white haired) to the Indians -- was a community leader
until his death on July 8, 1876. Dixon became the county seat in 1839
and is today a thriving community. At the beginning of the Black Hawk
War in 1832 a small fort was built on the north bank of the river.
Among the men of future prominence who served here Abraham Lincoln
and Zachary Taylor, U.S. Presidents; Winfield Scott, presidential
nominee and famous soldier; Robert Anderson; Albert Sidney Johnston
and Joseph E. Johnston, Civil War generals; William S. Hamilton, son
of Alexander; Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy; and John
Reynolds, Illinois governor. The statue, 'Lincoln, the Soldier, 'by
Leonard Grunelle stands on the site of Fort Dixon. In 1837 Alexander
Charters obtained a tract of land three miles north of Dixon's Ferry.
He named his estate Hazelwood and entertained such notables as
William Cullen Bryant, Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and
General Philip Kearney. Charles Walgreen who lived in Dixon as a
youth and later founded the Walgreens drugstores, purchased Hazelwood
in 1929.
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