SVM_Small Town Living West - Fall 2023

Students learn a lot about farming , thanks

A histour y of Whiteside County’s forgotten communities

Photo feature: Tampico throws one heck of a party

to a local farm family

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Throwing one heck of a party

PHOTO FEATURE: It was a weekend of fun brought to you by a village that gave America a President.

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Hearing it through the melon vine

Local students are learning a lot about agriculture, thanks to a local farm family who knows that any way you slice it, melon farming can teach kids a lot.

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A histour y of Whiteside County

They’re the places time has passed by — quaint communities at corners and crossroads, nestled along railroads and rivers, but today they’re little more than a memory.

STORY BY CODY CUTTER | SAUK VALLEY MEDIA

ou probably never thought of the blacksmith as a superhero, but who else can bend steel with their hands and lay claim the title of a real Iron Man?

Before industrious inventors ushered in a revolution and factories fired up furnaces to churn out tools, the trusty blacksmith — red-

hot metal in hand, sweat running down his furrowed brow toiled away over a flaming furnace, transforming iron into tools that helped build cities, farm the land, and forge a nation. It was an age of horse power and fire power.

BLACKSMITHS cont’d to page 6

BLACKSMITHS cont’d from page 5

These days, it’s an age of mass production. The Industrial Age made the town smithy less of a need and more of a novelty — but even in this time of assembly lines, there’s still an appreciation and demand for handmade goods, and some local craftsmen have a supply to meet that demand.

Daryl Drennen of Prophetstown and Rob “Ike” Isaacson of Morrison are wielding tongs and tools and pounding on anvils to make

Blacksmithing is alive and well in Whiteside County, thanks to a trio of enthusiasts who enjoy pounding away at projects:

Daryl Drennen (center) of Prophetstown, his son Patrick (left) of Erie, and Rob “Ike” Isaacson of Morrison. CODY CUTTER/CCUTTER@ SHAWMEDIA.COM

metal creations like the blacksmiths of decades and centuries ago. When they aren’t in their sheds firing up their coal or gas forges and hammering away, they make the rounds at local events demonstrating a skill that dates back to medieval times. Drennen and Isaacson have teamed up at events to show people how metal can be manipulated to create one-of-a-kind pieces — art, tools, and other items. The demonstrations do more than just entertain; they educate, too, teaching today’s generation the important role blacksmiths played in history when they created everything from tools of trades to tools of war — and the role they still play today.

BLACKSMITHS cont’d to page 7

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“Without blacksmiths, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” Isaacson said. “We wouldn’t have all of this Industrial Age stuff.”

Back in the day, blacksmiths were such an important part of a community that passing along the skill was a necessity. That’s how Drennen learned the skill about a decade ago, watching Isaacson use nearly 35 years of creating knives, yard art and crosses to pick up on the craft.

After seeing Isaacson create pieces, it would get Drennen’s mind flowing with a little creativity of his own.

“You have this idea in your mind, and you have an immovable object, but you can move it,” Drennen said. “You make what you have in your mind. There’s something about taking a piece of steel to an anvil. You have a piece of steel and you know what you want to do with it, and then doing it is great.”

What Isaacson passed on to his longtime cohort has since been passed on to Daryl’s son, Patrick, who got his first taste of the forge about seven years ago. Today, father and son operate Daryl’s backyard shed as Hillbilly Hollow Forge.

When the ornate entryway at the Leon Corners cemetery needed fixed, township officials turned to a blacksmith for help. Daryl Drennen fired up his forge to fix the aging piece. “It needed a lot of help,” he said. “A neighbor of mine sits on the [Prophetstown] Township board, and he told me the support was gone, and I told him I’d do it.” The piece before (below and inset) and after (right) Drennen’s handiwork.

From medieval times to the modern day, blacksmiths have been called upon to put their mastery of metal to use, turning out weapons and armor, nails, tools, household goods, farm implements and more. These days, their work tends to be less utilitarian and more decorative — flowers you never have to water, birds forever in flight, or an everlasting show of faith.

Rob’s Damascus blacksmith knife.

Rob turned a ball-peen hammer into a camp axe.

Tis the season for Daryl’s Christmas tree ornaments and candy canes.

“I got a call one day and was told to come to Rob’s because they needed some help,” Patrick said. “I get there, the door opens, [My dad’s] holding a hammer in front of me near the forge. ‘Beat this and repeat.’ That’s how it was. It got me hooked.”

For Isaacson, his passion for the trade began when he attended Southeastern Community College in West Burlington, Iowa, to study gunsmithing.

“I went to college for gunsmithing, and one of the instructors ran a booth,” Isaacson said. “I helped him set one up and was kind of hooked on it. I stayed with him for about a week, and I’ve been pounding iron ever since.”

Rob Isaacson works the anvil during the 2020 Bos Brothers Fall Harvest show in rural Erie.

Daryl Drennen keeps an eye on his forge at the blacksmith pit during the 2022 Bos Brothers Historical Farm’s Fall Harvest Show.

Damascus knives are among Isaacson’s most cherished creations. The unique steel has a wavy, patterned design, but also is hard and flexible while maintaining a sharp edge. It’s made by laying different types of steel on one another and forge-welding them together. Most types of Damascus are 100 to 200 layers, but one of Isaacson’s favorite projects was making a 480-layer blade — “It was raw power with a lot of hitting,” he said. He made the piece shortly after he began teaching Daryl the craft.

Throughout his three-and-a-half decades firing forges, Isaacson also has made lantern holders, S-hook chains, bottle openers, yard art flowers and cattails, and hammers and axes.

“If anyone has an idea, they can tell us what it is, and we’ll try to make it,” Isaacson said. “Right now I’ve been doing a lot of knives and flowers. Women like flowers and guys like knives.”

Daryl has done similar projects since he began, and they often share their work with one another.

“We give each other ideas,” Isaacson said. “We also get critiqued, too. We’ll go, ‘How’s this look?’ Or, ‘Why don’t you do this instead of this?’ [We’ll go], ‘Not a bad idea, I’ll try it.’”

BLACKSMITHS cont’d to page 10

There was a time when farms couldn’t do without a blacksmith, and the Bos brothers relive those times, during their Fall Harvest show

Daryl crafted the branding iron above for Chuck Bos, co-owner of the Bos Brothers Historical Farm near Spring Hill. The brothers host an old-fashioned threshing show in late July, and a harvest show during even-numbered years. “He had wanted a branding iron with their logo on it,” Daryl said. “I told him I could make it out of a quarter-inch square, but he wanted it thinner. I knew I had some eighth-inch stock here, and I fooled around and made that, and I think he liked it.”

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Sometimes there will be moments of blunt honesty.

“Not only do we work together, we’ll also give each other a hard time,” Daryl said — but the hard times stop when the work begins during their demonstrations.

During those events, they’ll even put tools in the hands of people who come to see the demonstrations, young and old alike, and let them take a whack at blacksmithing — with proper supervision, of course.

The smiles on people’s faces when they bring the hammer down — that “Hey! I did that!” moment — can melt hearts, even ones that have spent years around a forge.

“I like teaching people,” Isaacson said. “I like showing them what we do. If you want to try it, grab a hammer. Most people think with steel, you’re not going to move it because it’s hard. We’ll get it red hot and take a small hammer and move steel with it.”

Shows where Isaacson and Drennen have shown their skills include the Bos Brothers’ Old Fashioned Threshing Show on July 26-28, and Erie’s Street Fest on Aug. 12. Drennen also plans to be at the Deer Valley Collectors and Farm Days in the Village show Aug. 26 and 27 at the Village of East Davenport in Davenport, Iowa (go to villageofeastdavenport.com for more information), and this year’s Harvest Days on Oct. 14 in Prophetstown.

Once someone gets a hammer in hand, it’s easy to see why people get hooked.

“I like it when people come up to you and you can show them how to do stuff, and then they want to try their hand at it,” Patrick said. “It says something when you’re just talking with them and showing them this-and-this, and we’ll go, ‘Here you go.’

When the metal comes out from the forge and it’s red hot, when you start moving it, it’s very soothing to see that you can actually manipulate it to what you want it to be. n Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com.

Mark Stach of Dixon (center) gets in some hammer time in March as Daryl Drennen, right, helps at Brian Cheshire’s shop in Dixon, where several area blacksmiths gather about once a month to ply their trade and network with other metal workers. Stach has been working on a project to turn reclaimed steel from the Rock River, left by the 1873 Truesdell Bridge collapse in Dixon, into a historical art project. ALEX T.

It was a weekend of fun brought to you by a village that gave America a President.

It had beards and Bingo, tractors and trucks, fireworks and fishing, painting and petting, home runs and hoses — heck, it even had airborne axes.

It was Tampico Days, an annual celebration of the village where Ronald Reagan was born, and where people pack the streets in a show of hometown pride. Local businesses and groups chip in to sponsor the event, and volunteers pull it all together.

This year’s festival kicked off Thursday, July 20, with Bingo and a youth dance. The next day, there were tours of Reagan’s birthplace, music by Bobbi White and fireworks. When the weekend rolled around, things were kicked up a notch, with a day full of family fun on Saturday, starting with a home run derby and ending with sound of Silence, from headliner band Radio Silence, who brought their Midwest mix of rock, pop, punk, hip hop and a bit of everything else to the festival’s main stage. In between there was a car show, beard contest, axe throwing contest, tractor parade, and more.

There was no day of rest on Sunday as the festival wrapped up. Things got off to an early start in the morning with flapjacks from the fire department and wrapped up in the afternoon with a parade and raffle drawing.

For more information on the festival, go to tampicodays.com, or find Tampico Days on Facebook.

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Tampico firefighters concentrate their hoses on a sliding bucket during a water fight July 22. The competition pitted firefighters against each other to see who could move the bucket to the opponents’ end zone. Kids got in on the fun, too, keeping cool as they sloshed through the water. keeping (above).

Kyhlor

Thomas, 10, of Tampico gets ready to let his axe fly July 22 at the Whoop Your Axe trailer. Whoop Your Axe is a Sterling-based axe-throwing business. Read more about it in the spring 2023 Sterling-Rock Falls Living magazine, at issuu.com/shawmedia/docs/svm srfl 031323.

Kyhlor (right) looks on as C.J. Lawson, sets his sights on the bulls-eye at the Whoop Your Axe trailer.

The first group of runners take off July 22 during the Kids Fun Run. Five age groups

oug and Jeanne Mitchell have helped teach local students quite a bit through the years: How nature works. The different parts of our ecosystem. The important role that agriculture plays. They’ve even taught kids their A, Bee, C’s. And they’ve done it all with melons.

Doug and Jeanne are two of the Mitchells who make up Mitchell Melons, a family farm operation in Tampico with decades of history in its fields.

The second-generation owners are also big proponents of the Ag in the Classroom program, which brings farming out of the fields and into schools. For the past few years, they’ve volunteered their time to share their knowledge with gradeschoolers in Whiteside County, earning the appreciation of educators who recognize the importance what these experts in their field bring to the classroom.

In December, they also earned the thanks of the Illinois Farm Bureau.

The Mitchell family was awarded a prestigious honor from the Farm Bureau during its annual conference in December in Chicago, as an Ag in the Classroom Volunteer of the Year award winner.

Doug and Jeanne are the oldest of three generations on the family farm, which also includes Doug and Jeanne’s daughter, Whitney Mitchell-DeWitte, and her husband, Brandon DeWitte. Jeanne and Whitney have done much of the classroom work in recent years, showing them how to grow a melon and providing video and Power Point tours of their farm and operation, located a couple of miles northeast of Tampico.

MITCHELL cont’d to page 22

December in Chicago

SUBMITTED PHOTO Jeanne Mitchell of Mitchell Melons shows students from St. Mary Elementary School in Sterling how to plant melon seeds. The Mitchells were honored by the Illinois Farm Bureau during its annual conference

as an Ag in the Classroom Volunteer of the Year award winner.

Mitchell Melons has been growing melons east of Tampico for nearly 60 years. Its management team includes (from left) owners Jeanne and Doug Mitchell; Whitney Mitchell-DeWitte, holding her daughter, Laiken; Brandon DeWitte, holding son Logan; and longtime employee

Mike Kelly.

MITCHELL cont’d from page 21

The Mitchells were nominated for the award by Matt Lillipop, the Whiteside County Farm Bureau’s Executive Director, and its Ag in the Classroom Coordinator Diane Baker. They invited the Mitchells to come to the conference, but the award came as a surprise to them.

“It was completely off the radar, we had no idea,” Doug said. “We were invited to come up, and we still had no idea how big it was.”

“It was quite the honor,” Jeanne said.

The Mitchells work with Baker to schedule visits to classrooms, and this year they made it to second-grade classrooms at Tampico Elementary, Prophetstown Elementary, St. Mary School in Sterling and East Coloma-Nelson School in Rock Falls. Lillipop and Baker, who make the rounds to county schools for additional ag lessons, think highly of the Mitchells.

“Matt Lillipop and Diane Baker are so great to work with,” Jeanne said. “People need this. The kids need to learn. Ag in the Classroom is a phenomenal thing for the kids.

With each visit, Jeanne and Whitney bring Dixie cups, small pots, seeds, and heaps of soil to give kids a hands-on demonstration of how a tiny seed can sprout into such a large fruit. From there, students take their seed and soil home where they can transplant it and watch it grow. Some students have shared their results with the Mitchells, who have recognized their successes on its Facebook page.

MITCHELL cont’d to page 23

“We’ll encourage them and give them information about what to do with them when they get them home, and what to look for,” Jeanne said. “We have had a couple who have grow them all the way into maturity, to where they can cut them and eat them.”

There’s also question-and-answer time where students can pose questions.

One of the facts that creates a bit of a buzz with the kids is the key role that bumblebees play in the melon growing process. The students are fascinated to learn how these industrious insects pollinate the plants, playing a vital role in the process that turns seeds into melons, and pollination into profit.

Some of the bees on the Mitchell farm are brought in to do their work, but others come naturally, from the nearby Hennepin Feeder Canal, which is a haven for busy little buzzers in the early summer. Doug said that bumblebees, as opposed to honey bees, work harder, longer and in tougher conditions.

Helping kids grow ...

Left: Whitney Mitchell-DeWitte of Mitchell Melons shows students in Rebecca Repass’ second-grade class at East Coloma-Nelson School in Rock Falls how to plant melon seeds.

Below: The Mitchells were honored by the Illinois Farm Bureau during its annual conference December in Chicago as an Ag in the Classroom Volunteer of the Year award winner. From left: owners Doug and Jeanne Mitchell, Whiteside County Farm Bureau Ag in the Classroom coordinator Diane Baker, Whitney MitchellDeWitte and Brandon DeWitte.

Melons and tractors run in the family

Left: Doug and Jeanne Mitchell plant melon seeds on their Tampico farm. Doug is a second-generation grower whose children and grandchildren have become involved in Mitchell Melons in recent years, including the little fourth-generation helpers. Above: Logan (on the cart) and Laiken DeWitte (on the tractor).

SUBMITTED PHOTOS

“The bees always fascinate the kids,” Doug said. “You can’t get a melon without a bee, it has to be pollinated. The kids know about the bees and are taught how important they are, but until they see that they have to go from one flower to another flower — that gives them a sense of actually how important it is.”

For about 85 to 90 days starting in mid-May, the Mitchells grow both regular and seedless watermelons; the seedless ones have become popular sellers in recent years, Doug said. Sensation melons also are popular; they’re round like a seedless watermelon, soft in texture and sweet in flavor. “It’s phenomenal,” Doug said. “Anyone who eats it will want it again. They go nuts over it.” They also grew yellow watermelons last year (yellow inside, the usual green on the outside), and Whitney started growing and selling pumpkins last year.

Mitchell Melons are found in most grocery stores within a 60-mile radius from Tampico, with the Savanna-based Sullivan’s Foods — with stores throughout northern Illinois — their largest customer.

The family also has a stand at their farm that operates from late July to mid-to-late September, where the current three generations of Mitchells — Doug and Jeanne, Whitney and Brandon, and Logan and Laiken DeWitte — can be found selling melons, greeting returning customers and making friends with new ones. They like to have the stand operating in time for National Watermelon Day, on Aug. 3. In addition, other workers, some having been with the farm for more than 30 years and others still in high school, are an important part of the operation.

Like the family that runs it, generations of customers are part of the farm’s story. It’s not unusual to see customers return to the stand each year for decades, eventually bringing their own children. It’s become as much of a ritual of summer as sinking your teeth into a juicy melon and spitting out the seeds.

MITCHELL cont’d to page 25

“We’ve had people come down here for more than 50 years,” Doug said. “You can build a relationship, and that’s pretty special. It’s unique in that there’s not too many people who do it. We take great pride in the quality of our melons.”

“It’s fun to see people, both workers and customers, who came here as kids and then come back,” Jeanne added. “Even if they live away from here, they’ve always found it fun to come back.”

Doug’s parents, Wayne and Jean Mitchell, began farming melons from their home in Manito, about 20 miles south of Peoria in Mason County. After finding the soil there wasn’t as suitable for melon farming as they had hoped, and with irrigation not an option at the time, they headed north, to Tampico, to find better ground. The Mitchells put down roots at their current farm in 1966, and since then the family farm has become a favorite destination for the melons the family has perfected during their nearly 60 years in business.

This season will be the first for Doug without either parent helping out in the operation. Wayne died in 2014 and Jean, who still helped out at the farm stand up until last year, passed away in February.

For more than 40 years, the Ag in the Classroom program has been teaching students nationwide, from all walks of life, about the journey from farm to plate, as well as encouraging future generations to play a role in that journey. Whether it’s the food we eat, the medicine we take, or a host of other everyday products, knowing how these things are created and the role farming plays gives children a better understanding of just how important agriculture is to their everyday lives.

The Mitchells are promoting ag education not just through their melons, but through the seeds they plant in the generations of future farmers.

“They’re interested to learn,” Jeanne said, “and they want to know where their food is coming from.” n

Cody Cutter can be reached at 815-632-2532 or ccutter@shawmedia.com.

The melon stand at Mitchell Melons, 5549 Luther Road, east of Tampico, opens in late July and runs through early-to-mid September. Find “Mitchell Melons Tampico, IL” on Facebook for up-to-date information on operating dates and hours, and to find out what local stores carry its melons. Also find it @mitchellmelons on Instagram, email mitchellmelons@ gmail.com or call 815-535-8901 for more information.

Save the Dates!

Upcoming Events at Deja Vu

August 17th: National Thrift Shopping Day

August 18th - 31st: Déjà Vu’s 14th

Anniversary Sale

August 25th: National Second-Hand Wardrobe Day

September 23-Closed

Sept 26th - 28th: Déjà vu – Closed

Sept 29th & 30th: Christmas Preview Sale

October 2nd: Celebrate National Consignment Day

Adult Halloween Wine Walk: Date to be Announced (October 19th?)

October 27th: Downtown Trick or Treat

October 30th: Marti Grau’s Parade

November 6th: Christmas Village Up

November 16th - 19th: Déjà vu Holiday

Open House

November 22nd: Déjà Vu Closes at 2 pm

Thanksgiving: Closed

November 24th: Black Friday Sale

November 25th: Shop Small Saturday

November 26th: Open 11-4

December 1st: Tree Lighting?

December 3rd: Open 11-4

December 10th: Open 11-4

December 15th - 23rd: Dude & Dudettes Sale

December 17th: Open 11-4

December 23rd: Open 10-3

Christmas Eve: Closed

Christmas: Closed

December 26-30: Get Rid of Sh** from Christmas Sale

New Year Eve: Closed

New Year Day: Closed

FF

ith just over 54,000 people calling it home, Whiteside County sits near the top quarter of Illinois counties by population, coming in at 24th out of 102 counties. Named after Black Hawk War general Samuel Whiteside, it’s a county with high bluffs and flat lands, farm communities and river cities — where mighty waters border it, and rocky waters run through it.

Scattered across its rural landscape are cities and villages that range from “blink towns” to bustling little burgs.

Look at a map today and you’ll easily find the Twin Cities of Sterling and Rock Falls, with a combined population of around 23,000, as well as the county seat, Morrison, and its nearly 4,000 residents. Other towns and villages — Albany, Coleta, Erie, Fulton, Lyndon, Prophetstown and Tampico among them — hover between 200 and 4,000 residents.

Look a little more closely and you’ll see even smaller villages that dot the landscape, and the map: Garden Plain, Malvern, Portland and Round Grove.

But there are some places that you’d be pretty hard pressed to find. That’s because there’s little or no sign of them — or an actual sign, for that matter.

They’re the once-growing settlements that never grew up. Some were little more than a rural post office operating out of a farmer’s home, while some called themselves a city. They’re the places where people made a home. These days, they may just be a scattering of a few houses, a bronze marker, or a faded memory — but they weren’t always that way. Some of these places were important during the county’s early days, and they have interesting stories to tell, like one that gave birth to an early type of harvester, a grove with early prospects that failed to materialize, and a corner where orphans grew up waiting for a loving home.

These smidgens and smatterings of communities don’t merit ink on a map or pixels on a screen these days, but just because they’re gone doesn’t mean they’re forgotten. They’ve found a home in local history books, and some are even remembered by older residents, but for most motorists meandering along country roads, these communities are little more than just pieces of the past today — a bit of foundation here, a driveway there, a school bell that sounds only echoes of the past.

So let’s put some gas in the Wayback Machine, shift it into reverse, and take a trip down Memory Lane to take a look at some of them …

Cody Cutter Sauk Valley Media

Aiken Ferry was a ferry across the Mississippi River in the mid-to-late 1850s connecting people and business from Garden Plain to Clinton. The ferry method of transportation along the river has waned over time: today, only one ferry operates on it, north of the St. Louis area. Aiken Ferry was about halfway between Albany and Fulton on the mouth of Cedar Creek, about 500 feet west of the intersection of state Route 84 and Garden Plain Road.

The ferry’s namesake and exact dates of origin have been lost to time, but its most important customer was the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad company, which was unable to build a bridge, or use the existing one of the Chicago and North Western near East Clinton, over the Mississippi. The CB&Q unloaded passengers and cargo at a junction with the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul just a few miles north of the ferry, and the latter line connected people and shipments to the ferry point. Ultimately, the CB&Q was able to use the Chicago and North Western bridge in 1885.

At right: The former site of Aiken Ferry, where the Cedar Creek empties into the Mississippi River, which can be seen in the background.

The long bluff across the northwestern part of the county limited travel to some of its lowest points, and one of them was where the Chicago and North Western railroad went through the county. At that point, Clifton was established as a post office in 1858. It was where the railroad crosses Acker Road in Fulton Township.

Clifton’s post office was short lived: it closed in 1861 and mail was sent to Union Grove, a mileand-half southeast.

In the early-tomid-1800s, the western portion of Whiteside County’s connection to Geneseo in Henry County was via Lewis Crandall’s ferry on the Rock River. No road leads exactly to the point today, but it was near the northern apex of Austin Road.

The ferry also was the site of a post office, from 1848 to 1849, before it was moved to nearby Erie, which by then had begun the grow, though it still had only a few houses at the time.

Burwick straddled the Whiteside-Ogle county border, about 1/8-mile east of the intersection of Freeport and Clark roads. According to Charles Bent and Robert Wilson’s 1877 history of the county, S. M. Bowman laid out the town in 1836, and around 10 houses, a post office and one store were built — but with railroads being laid out elsewhere, it died out by the 1860s, and the post office was moved about a mile north, in Ogle County.

One reminder of Berwick’s past are the remains of the Wilson Mill (photo above), where Freeport Road crosses Buffalo Creek south of where the town once was. The grist mill was built in 1836 by Joseph Wilson, and was the first in the northeast portion of the county. Most of the building is gone, but parts of its limestone support remain.

While Denrock continues to be a reference point for locals, anyone unfamiliar with it who drives past it would never know it existed.

The former community was a junction of CB&Q railroad lines between Erie and Lyndon, and was where today’s Moline Road crosses one of the tracks. It was established in 1871 and grew to have a few businesses, a post office, depot and a hotel. After just 50 years from its beginning, just the depot and tracks remained; two legs of the junction were removed in the 1980s. Only a couple of houses remain today.

Small Town Living covered Denrock’s history in detail in the Fall 2021 issue; go to issuu.com/shawmedia/ docs/svm small town liv-

Count

The intersection of Lyndon and Covell (above) roads in Clyde Township once had a few more houses than just the two that are there today, as well as a school, church and an orphanage.

Named after early settlers, Franklin Corners was home to a Brethren in Christ Church congregation from 1889 until its relocation to Morrison in 1968. The old church, which was on the southeast corner, no longer stands.

In 1900, Abraham Zook established the Mount Carmel Home orphanage on the southwest corner. The Brethren in Christ Conference took over its operations in 1912, and it closed in 1968. The orphanage housed between 15 to 30 young children during its day. The building is gone, but a section of the driveway remains on private property.

Oddly enough, the former site of Genesee City did not lie in the current boundaries of Genesee Township, but rather in Clyde, its neighbor to the west. It was where Spring Valley Road once crossed Rock Creek near White Pigeon.

The idea to develop a town around a mill on the creek was conceived in 1838 by Andrew Wing of Fulton. He and fellow Fultonite H.H. Fowler established a sawmill, and they sold lots to people coming to the area from the eastern United States. While they had their territory drawn out, the community and the mill both failed within a couple of years.

Unlike Genesee City, the Grove was within the township of the same name; but like Genesee City, it, too, was ill-fated.

Genesee Grove was Coleta’s predecessor. It had a post office from 1839 to 1840 in the home of Edward Richardson until Coleta — originally named Clayton — was established. Genesee Grove, named for a grove of trees nearby, was on Dean Road between Yorktown and Blue Goose roads.

CODY CUTTER/CCUTTER@SHAWMEDIA.COM

Named after settler G.R. Hamilton, the corners continue to be an important navigational destination: It is where state Route 78 turns north toward Morrison from Moline Road (photo above). The crossroads in the 19th century saw traffic going from Sterling to Moline from the east, and along the Lewistown stagecoach trail from central Illinois to Galena. A school and a few houses were there, but it was bypassed by the CB&Q when the company built its track from Sterling to Moline in 1869.

The naming of this post office on the Abbott Farm a half-mile west of Union Grove has an interesting story. The station was established in 1850 on the soon-to-be sesquicentennial family farm on the future U.S. Route 30, and it was decided that its name would be determined by drawing seven letters during a small ceremony. The first five letters drawn were H, E, M, L and O. Upon realizing there was a chance the next two letters to be drawn could be a C and a K, and the town could be saddled with the name of a deadly poison, the ceremony stopped and Hemlo stuck.

The Chicago and North Western bypassed the post office location and the Abbott Farm in 1855, and went north of them. The post office was moved to Clifton, just a couple of miles away and near track, in 1858.

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Johnathan Haines (at right) had quite the vision. Some of his ideas worked, and very few didn’t. Haines came to Whiteside County in 1835 and built a sawmill on Rock Creek, about a mile north of where Morrison would later be platted, where Tanglewild Drive is today, off of Norrish Road. Haines developed a small community around it named Jacobstown, and it attracted a few families.

In 1847, Haines developed the Haines Harvester, later to be known as the Illinois Harvester. He set up a small shop just a mile down the creek in Unionville, but ultimately took his business to Pekin in 1849. The harvester, through business acquisitions, would later become mass produced by the Acme Hay Harvester Co. of Peoria until 1917.

What didn’t work for Haines was his idea of Illinois City, which (according to Bent and Wilson’s county history) was “just west” of Jacobstown. The city was drawn out in 1837, but none of its lots ever sold. The idea of community named after its home state city didn’t end there, though. Today, another Illinois City — this one a small, unincorporated community with about 150 residents, can be found on state Highway 92 in Rock Island County, and is home to a post office and fire department.

As for the sawmill, it changed owners a few times and operated for another 40 years.

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Jefferson Corners is where Washington and Cooper roads currently meet (photo at left), three miles southwest of Prophetstown. Unlike it’s county “corners” counterparts, the buzz around this junction was a little more quieter, with a couple of houses, a school, church and cemetery — now named Washington Road Cemetery after being known for many years as Minson Cemetery.

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In the exact center of Jordan Township north of Sterling is the intersection of Hoover and Penrose roads. Today, this is best known as the former location of the Jordan Consolidated School from 1955 to 1982.

Starting in 1889, the crossroads became the hub for township business, with a school and town hall attracting a few homeowners. While the town hall remains at this location, the establishment of a Sterling-to-Freeport road led to the growth of Penrose, 1 mile to the east, which attracted more settlers.

Kingsbury was more of a small area within Newton Township as opposed to a single place with a defined border: it was the name of a post office that relocated several times throughout the mid-to-late 1800s. The post office ceased in 1886. The area was around the halfsquare-mile surrounded by Elston and Gaulrapp roads and two legs of Chase Road.

The loosely defined community was home to Whiteside County’s only Revolutionary War veteran, Pvt. Alexander Thompson. Born in 1758 in Pennsylvania, Thompson served in his home state in local militias from 1776-77 in a pair of two-month stints. Not much else is known of Thompson’s tours of duty, but he started a family in Pennsylvania in the early 1800s, and some of his children eventually settled in the Kingsbury area. Thompson’s life in the area was short-lived. He died in 1840, one year after arriving to live out his final days with his family. He is buried at Kingsbury Cemetery with markers erected by Morrison’s Daughters of the American Revolution chapter to commemorate his service (photo above)

New Genesee continues to have a handful of houses, and even one short street (Folkers Drive), but there was much more to it 150 years ago. Located on Fulfs Road about one mile west of Coleta Road, the village was strong enough to support a post office for 40 years, opening in 1854 and closing in 1894. An old school building for the town continues to stand on the north side of Fulfs Road, having since been converted into a home.

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Oliver was simply a train station along the CB&Q north of Fenton and east of Garden Plain. For most of the 20th Century, the station serviced workers who worked at the several peat companies in the area. Established around 1910 and named for a nearby land owner, the station was situated where a Hyponex warehouse now sits, about 1,000 feet south of Garden Plain Road on an access road.

About a mile west of Denrock on Moline Road at Henry Road once sat the community of Pratt, named for and developed by James M. Pratt. Established in 1869 when the CB&Q first rolled through, its prosperity was shortlived when another CB&Q branch intersected that one in Denrock. Pratt’s depot was gone by 1885, and its post office closed in 1890.

Pratt and Denrock are all but faint memories along Moline Road between Lyndon and Erie, but the two tiny burgs, 1 mile apart from one another, each had a post office at one time. In 1890, Pratt's post office was transferred to Denrock (document above), which by that time was a junction of two Chicago, Burlington and Quincy rail lines, and a more practical place for a post office.

Many county residents likely are familiar with Penrose, which sits at the junction of Penrose and Freeport roads in Jordan Township, but nonlocals likely wouldn’t put two and two together driving through this small burg with a handful of houses. No “welcome” sign is posted to give any indication that a community exists, and its name doesn’t appear on online maps.

Originally known as John’s Corners, and boasting a handful of Quaker families in the 1800s, as well as a post office at one time, Penrose’s top stop throughout most of the 20th Century was its grocery and general store at the crossroads. It was opened in 1887 by W.D. Detweiler, who during the store’s early days also had a traveling store that he took to homes throughout the township. In its later years, it was known as the Penrose Spot-Lite Food Mart until it closed in 1992. Although closed for more than 30 years, the Spot-Lite sign continues to hang at the location (photo above), a reminder of rural life days gone by.

Prospect Grove was the original name for the community where a school, church and cemetery under the name Hazel Green once was in Genesee Township, where Genesee Road turns into Elson Road north of Coleta. It was first settled by James Scoville in 1839. Only a few houses ever were there, and only the cemetery remains today.

F.I. Sands established Round Grove Crossing in 1885 along the CB&Q line from Sterling to Moline. There was just one problem: There already was a Round Grove along the Chicago and North Western about 2 miles north, so the second Round Grove changed its name to Sands about a year later.

Sands’ location, which still has a couple of houses, sits near the intersection of Yorktown and Jason roads near Interstate 88. The railroad was removed in the mid1980s, and about a decade prior to that, in 1974, a bridge was built on Yorktown Road over both the railroad right-of-way and the interstate — leaving the original site of the junction today as grass under a bridge.

Like the aforementioned Penrose, Unionville is well-known by those in and around Morrison for being the part of town where the old Annan Mill sits along Rock Creek. People driving east from Fulton or Garden Plain, however, will notice the welcome signs to Morrison posted just before Unionville’s boundaries.

Annan Mill, one of just a couple of stone mills remaining in Illinois, was built in 1858 and is currently owned by the Morrison Historical Society. The community also was where Jonathan Haines (mentioned earlier, in the Jacobstown and Illinois City entry) had a harvester shop. Today, what used to be Unionville’s public square is now a rest area for travelers on Route 30, the highway having sliced through it in the early 1900s.

The extreme northeast corner of Whiteside County was where Sanfordville was (at left, in an 1896 county map), near the intersection of Freeport and James roads (photo at right). Like some of the county’s forgotten communities, it was named after an early land owner, Vernon Sanford, who came to the area in 1838. The settlement had post offices on two separate occasions, from 1854-55 and 1892-1900.

The site of Sands, as it appears today. The path to the left is the former CB&Q rail line.

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CODY CUTTER/CCUTTER@SHAWMEDIA.COM

The Sands railroad station, seen here in an 1896 county map.

Unionville, just northwest of Morrison, in an 1896 county map.

Annan Mill, seen at left during the early 1900s in a photo from the Friends of Annan Mill Facebook page, and as it looks today (right).

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