Rockford Steel Buildings history

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.

Colonel Edward F. W. Ellis, of the 15th regiment, who was acting colonel when he was killed at Shiloh in 1862.

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.

Led by Albert Spaulding (pitcher) and Ross Barnes (infield), the team had become the most prominent western club and joined the first professional baseball league, the National Association, for the 1871 season.

1884: The Mendelssohn Club, the oldest sustaining music club in the United States, is founded.

Defended by Clarence Darrow, Person was found not guilty in April 1920.

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.

Covenant Steel was founded in 1996 due to continuing demand for someone to manufacture larger and more complex three plate, pre-engineered type frames.

In 2002 Covenant made the move into the full service pre-engineered building business.

In 2004 Covenant began to see great opportunities in the larger industrial pre-engineered Buildings and Hybrid Buildings (combination of pre-engineered steel and structural steel) as well as Structural Steel fabrication when required.