In force, 3d March 1837.
AN ACT to establish a State road from Stephenson, in Rock-Island county, to the mouth of the Pickatonneka, and for other purposes.
1
County road deemed a State road
Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That the county road from Stephenson, in Rock-Island county, to Savanna, in
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Jo Daviess county, be and the same is hereby declared a state road.2
Commissioners to view road.
Sec. 2. That Germanicus Kent of Winnebago county, Minor York of Ogle county, Asa Crook of Whiteside county, Charles Eames and John Spencer of Rock-Island county, be and they are hereby appointed commissioners to view, survey, and locate a state road, to commence at Stephenson in Rock-Island county, thence to Dixon in Ogle county, thence to Grand de Tour, thence to Oregon city, thence to Bloomingville, thence to Rockford, and thence to or near the mouth of the Pickatonneka.3
Time and place of meeting.
To be sworn
Distance of stakes
Sec. 3. The commissioners aforesaid, or a majority of them, shall meet at Stephenson on the first Monday in June next, or within three months thereafter, and before entering on the duties assigned them by this act, shall take an oath before some justice of the peace faithfully and impartially to locate said road, keeping in view the shortness of the route and the eligibility of the ground, so as to make the same a permanent road; and wherever the said road shall be located through the prairie land, it shall be the duty of said commissioners to place a stake four feet high, firmly fixed in the ground at the distance of every quarter of a mile on the same, and to set a post on the right of the road with the miles numbered thereon, progressively.
Shall make map of road
Sec. 4. The said commissioners, so soon as they shall have completed said work, shall make out a map under their hands, which together with the field notes of survey, and such other remarks tending to illustrate the said route as they shall deem interesting, and return the same to the county commissioners’ courts of each county through which the same shall pass, which returns shall be filed in said courts.
Compensation of commis’rs[commissioners] and necessary hands out county treasury
Sec. 5. Said road, when laid out as aforesaid, shall be deemed a public high-way, and the county commissioners’ courts of said counties shall cause the same to be opened four poles wide,4 and to be worked and kept in repair as other state roads are; and the respective county commissioners’ courts of said counties shall allow the said commissioners two dollars each per day for the time necessarily employed in making the location and return of said road; and also a reasonable allowance for such hands as may be deemed necessary in the survey of said road, to be paid out of the county treasuries respectively.5
This act to take effect and be in force from and after its passage.
Approved 3d March, 1837.
1The House of Representatives and Senate passed the bill on or before March 3, 1837. On March 3, the Council of Revision approved the bill, and the act became law.
2State roads were those public roads established or designated by the General Assembly and usually crossed county lines. Only the General Assembly could establish, alter, or abandon state roads, until 1840 and 1841, when the General Assembly gave counties the authority to alter or to abandon state roads upon petition by a majority of voters in the area of the change.
3The mouth of the Pecatonica was at the confluence of the Rock River near Rockton.
4A pole is equivalent to 16.5 feet.
5In 1839, the General Assembly passed an act relocating part of this road.

Printed Document, 2 page(s), Laws of the State of Illinois, Passed by the Tenth General Assembly (Vandalia, IL: William Walters, 1837), 283-84, GA Session: 10-1