Oswego, Illinois

City: Oswego

County: Kendall County, Illinois

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 41.6667, -88.3500

Dating back to 1832, Oswego is the oldest inhabited town (by whites) in Kendall County, Illinois. The first permanent white settlers arrived in 1833. Proprietors laid out the village of Oswego in 1835, and it received a U.S. Post Office in July 1838. In 1845, voters in Kendall County moved the county seat from Yorkville to Oswego. Thanks to its status as seat of government and location at a stagecoach crossroads, Oswego's population grew quickly in the 1840s and 1850s. Oswego's growth slowed after 1859, when Kendall County voters approved removal of the county seat back to Yorkville. The Civil War delayed implementation of this decision until 1864, when the seat of government was placed permanently at Yorkville.

E. W. Hicks, History of Kendall County Illinois, from the Earliest Discoveries to the Present Time (Aurora, IL: Knickerbocker & Hodder, 1877), 98; James N. Adams, comp., Illinois Place Names (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society, 1989), 464; Roger A. Matile, ed., Oswego Township (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2008), 7-8.