Editor’s note: Columnist Tom Wadsworth is on vacation this week. This is a reprint of a column originally published Nov. 17, 2023.

I recently found three statements about early Dixon that stunned me.

The first one appeared in the 1881 “History of Lee County”. It said that Dixon was “the great transfer station on the stage lines that traversed the country” in the 1830s and 1840s.

The second statement was published in 1838 in a book titled “Illinois in 1837 & 8″. It described Dixon as the place where the stagecoach roads from Chicago, Naperville, Ottawa, Princeton, and Peoria converge before continuing on to Galena.

The two statements surprised me because I never realized Dixon’s pivotal role in the stagecoach business. That fact led to other revelations about early Dixon, especially abo

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