GALESBURG

city, seat (1873) of Knox county, west-central Illinois, U.S. George Washington Gale, a Presbyterian minister for whom the city was named, selected the site for a college community. In 1836 the first settlers arrived, and in 1837 a charter was granted to the Knox Manual Labour College (renamed Knox College in 1857); in 1930 it absorbed Lombard College, which had been founded by Universalists in 1851. The Knox campus was the site of the fifth Lincoln-Douglas debate on the slavery issue in 1858. Galesburg's economy is based mainly on agriculture and manufacturing, with coal mining decreasing in importance. Galesburg was the birthplace of Carl Sandburg, the poet and biographer of Abraham Lincoln. The small house where he lived as a child has been restored. The city's Carl Sandburg (junior) College was opened in 1967, the year of Sandburg's death. Lake Storey, once a railroad-owned water reservoir, has been transformed into a recreational park. Inc. 1857. Pop. (1990) 33,530; (1994 est.) 33,316.