City of Rockford history

A post office was established in 1837.

Anson Miller introduced a bill in the state legislature in an unsuccessful attempt to repeal the Illinois "Black Laws." Former President Martin Van Buren, running as Free Soil presidential candidate in 1848, received 42% of the county's vote and missed winning the county by just 59 votes.

In 1852, Senator John P. Hale, the Free Soil candidate, became the first presidential candidate to visit the city and managed a respectable 28% of the county's popular vote.

1858: The city's oldest social organization, the Rockford Burns Club, is founded to celebrate the birthday of Scots poet Robert Burns.

By 1860 Rockford had become a significant, growing industrial center, noted for production of the John H. Manny reaper and other agricultural machinery.

When war broke out in 1861, one of the first Illinois military contingents to be mobilized was the Rockford Zouaves.

Both stars had been hired away by Boston after the 1870 season, so the club's season was not particularly successful, despite the presence of Adrian Anson, playing his first major league season.

Anna Williams (1871). The decision supported African Americans' rights to unhindered use of public transportation, but was decided on such narrow legal grounds it was cited in support of the "separate but equal" doctrine established by the United States Supreme Court in Plessy v.

Started in 1876, the Rockford Union Furniture Company was the first of 25 area furniture factories that were formed as cooperatives.

The city was a member of the Northwestern League, the first minor league, in 1879, and since that time has frequently had a minor league club.

Kegel Harley-Davidson is also the worlds oldest family owned dealership as it was started by Joe Kegel in 1910 and is still operated today by his great grandchildren, Karl and Mark Kegel.

1916: The Booker Washington Center is founded.

The boulevards tend to be in slightly newer subdivisions built in the 1920s.

Machesney airport, located north of the city, originally a private airport starting in 1927, was later used by the army air corps during World War II, later was a municipal airport and is now no longer an airport but home to the Machesney Park Mall.

He was reelected twice, lost, then reelected twice again, before being permanently retired in 1933 by C. Henry Bloom, a former Socialist alderman with widespread labor support.

In 1940, Camp Grant was reactivated as a United States Army base and was a reception center for draftees, a training center for medical corpsmen, and finally a separation center.

Near the outskirts of Rockford in Belvidere, a Chrysler car factory was built in 1965 which initially assembled the Chrysler Newport and other large cars and now produces the Dodge Caliber and similar cars.

C. Hal Nelson (Winnebago County Illinois Sesquicentennial Committee, 1968), is heavily illustrated, but problematical.

Coronado Theatre, "Rockford's Wonder Theater", was listed during 1979 to the National Register of Historic Places.

Hamilton Sundstrand (acquired by United Technologies in 1999) has manufactured many industrial, aviation, and aerospace products.