Grand Detour, Illinois

City: Grand Detour

County: Ogle

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 41.893983, -89.414557

Named after the early American French phrase for a large bend in a river, Grand Detour is located on a horseshoe-shaped bend on the Rock River roughly five miles northeast of Dixon, Illinois. A trading post was first established near Grand Detour in the 1820s, and a U.S. Post Office was established there in May 1838.

Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 143, 165; James N. Adams, comp., Illinois Place Names (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society, 1989), 377.