Galesburg, Illinois

City: Galesburg

County: Knox

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 40.9333, -90.3667

Galesburg was founded 1836 and chartered five years later. The town was named in honor of Presbyterian minister George W. Gale, one of the town founders who was also instrumental in establishing the Knox Manual Labor College (later Knox College) in the community. Galesburg received a U.S. Post Office in September 1837 and Galesburg was the site of the fifth Lincoln-Douglas Debate on October 7, 1858. In 1863, the process of moving the county seat of Knox County from Knoxville to Galesburg began when the Illinois General Assembly authorized the town to hold an election on the issue.

Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 131; An Act to Incorporate the Town of Galesburg, in Knox County; An Act to Amend an Act, Entitled An Act to Incorporate the Town of Galesburg, in Knox County; An Act to Incorporate the Knox Manual Labor College; Edwin Erle Sparks, ed., The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (Dansville, NY: F. A. Owen, 1918), 87-109; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 7 October 1858, http://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1858-10-07; “An Act to Enable the People of the County of Knox to Remove their County Seat,” 2 February 1863, Public Laws of Illinois (1863), 54-55; “An Act to Enable the People of the County of Knox to Vote Upon the Removal of the County Seat,” 14 February 1865, Private Laws of Illinois (1865), 1:548-49.