DIXON

city, seat (1834) of Lee County, north central Illinois, U.S., on the Rock River. In 1830 John Dixon established a ferry service and tavern there on his mail route between Peoria and Galena. Gen. Henry Atkins built Ft. Dixon as a base for his campaign in 1832 against Chief Black Hawk. The Blockhouse was where Jefferson Davis, Zachary Taylor, and Abraham Lincoln met as comrades-in-arms; a bronze statue (by Leonard Crunelle) depicting the young Lincoln as a captain in the militia marks the site on the river's north bank. Dixon is the commercial centre of an agricultural region and has some industry, notably the manufacture of cement and auto parts. The Dixon Developmental Center is a hospital for the mentally retarded and the blind. Sauk Valley Community College (1965) is 5 mi (8 km) west. White Pines Forest State Park is to the north. Inc. 1857. Pop. (1990) 15,144.