Middleport, Illinois

City: Middleport

County: Iroquois

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 40.7667, -87.7333

Located in eastern Illinois nearly thirty miles south and east of Kankakee, Illinois, Middleport served as the de facto county seat of Iroquois County, Illinois for a time because the chosen county seat of Iroquois never erected any public buildings. It became the official county seat in 1839, and the U.S. Post Office Department established a post office in the town in November of that year. In 1843, citizens of the town constructed a courthouse on the public square. Many county records related to the history of Middleport were destroyed by a fire just after the Civil War.

H. W. Beckwith, History of Iroquois County (Chicago: H. H. Hill, 1880), 350-53; Webster's New Geographical Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1988), 1323; James N. Adams, comp., Illinois Place Names (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society, 1989), 437.