Knox County is a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

in the U.S. state of

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 49,967. Its

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US ...

is Galesburg. Knox County comprises the Galesburg, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area.

History

Knox County was named in honor of

Henry Knox Henry Knox (July 25, 1750 – October 25, 1806), a Founding Father of the United States, was a senior general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, serving as chief of artillery in most of Washington's campaigns. Following the ...

, the first US Secretary of War. The first "Knox County" in what today is Illinois was unrelated to the modern incarnation. In 1790, the land of the Indiana Territory that was to become Illinois was divided into two counties: St. Clair and Knox. The latter included land in what was to become

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th ...

. When Knox County,

, was formed from this portion of the county in 1809, the Illinois portions were subdivided into counties that were given other names. The modern Knox County, Illinois, was organized in 1825, from Fulton County, itself a portion of the original St. Clair County. Like its neighbor to the south, Fulton County, for its Spoon River Drive, Knox County is also known for a similar scenic drive fall festival the first two weekends in October, the Knox County Drive. File:Knox County Illinois 1825.png, Knox County between its creation in 1825 and 1831 File:Knox County Illinois 1831.png, Knox County between 1831 and 1839 File:Knox County Illinois 1839.png, Knox County in 1839, when it was reduced slightly to its current size

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (0.5%) is water.

Climate and weather

In recent years, average temperatures in the county seat of Galesburg have ranged from a low of in January to a high of in July, although a record low of was recorded in January 1982 and a record high of was recorded in July 1983. Average monthly precipitation ranged from in January to in July.

Public Transit

Galesburg station Galesburg is an Amtrak intercity train station in Galesburg, Illinois, United States. The station was originally built in 1984, after the razing of the large depot just south of the current site. It is located north of the large BNSF Classificat ...

* Burlington Trailways *

Galesburg Transit Galesburg Transit is the primary provider of mass transportation in Knox County, Illinois with routes serving the Galesburg area. As of 2019, the system provided 160,712 rides over 23,487 annual vehicle revenue hours with 4 buses and 8 demand re ...

* List of intercity bus stops in Illinois

Major highways

* Interstate 74 * U.S. Highway 34 * U.S. Highway 150 * Illinois Route 8 * Illinois Route 17 * Illinois Route 41 * Illinois Route 78 * Illinois Route 97 *

Illinois Route 164 Illinois Route 164 is a state road in rural western Illinois. It runs from U.S. Route 34 in Gladstone to U.S. Route 34 and Illinois Route 41 in Galesburg. This distance is . Route description Illinois 164 is the main access road from Mon ...

* Illinois Route 116 *

Illinois Route 167 Illinois Route 167 (IL 167) is a east–west state road entirely located in Knox County in western Illinois. It runs from U.S. Route 34 (US 34) northeast of Wataga to IL 180 east of Victoria. The route is maintained by the Illinois Department ...

* Illinois Route 180

Adjacent counties

* Mercer County - northwest * Henry County - north * Stark County - east * Peoria County - southeast * Fulton County - south * Warren County - west

Demographics

As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 52,919 people, 21,535 households, and 13,324 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 24,077 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 87.5% white, 7.2% black or African American, 0.6% Asian, 0.2% American Indian, 1.9% from other races, and 2.5% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 4.8% of the population. In terms of ancestry, 23.1% were German, 14.9% were Irish, 11.7% were English, 11.6% were

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

, and 8.0% were American. Of the 21,535 households, 27.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.7% were married couples living together, 11.9% had a female householder with no husband present, 38.1% were non-families, and 32.3% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.27 and the average family size was 2.84. The median age was 42.0 years. The median income for a household in the county was $39,545 and the median income for a family was $51,740. Males had a median income of $42,067 versus $25,380 for females. The per capita income for the county was $20,908. About 10.9% of families and 15.5% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 24.7% of those under age 18 and 7.3% of those age 65 or over.

Communities

Cities

* Abingdon * Galesburg *

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state ...

* Oneida

Villages

* Altona * East Galesburg * Henderson * London Mills (mostly in Fulton County) * Maquon * Rio *

St. Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afri ...

* Victoria * Wataga * Williamsfield * Yates City

Census-designated places

* Gilson * Oak Run

Other unincorporated communities

Appleton Appleton may refer to: People *Appleton (surname) Places Australia * Appleton Dock Canada * Appleton, Newfoundland and Labrador * Appleton, Ontario United Kingdom * Appleton, a deserted medieval village site in the parish of Flitcham w ...

* Centerville * Columbia Heights *

Dahinda Dahinda is an unincorporated community in Knox County, Illinois, United States. It is part of the Galesburg Micropolitan Statistical Area. Dahinda is in Persifer Township and lies approximately one mile north of U.S. Highway 150 and Interst ...

* Delong * Douglas * Elba Center * Henderson Grove * Hermon *

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

* Rapatee * Saluda * Soperville * Trenton Corners * Truro * Uniontown

Townships

Knox County is divided into twenty-one

townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

: * Cedar *

Chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelate ...

* Copley *

Elba Elba ( it, isola d'Elba, ; la, Ilva) is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino on the Italian mainland, and the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago. It is also part of the Arcipelago Toscano Nation ...

* Galesburg * Galesburg City * Haw Creek * Henderson * Indian Point * Knox *

Lynn Lynn may refer to: People and fictional characters * Lynn (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Lynn (surname) * The Lynns, a 1990s American country music duo consisting of twin sisters Peggy and Patsy Lynn * Lynn ( ...

* Maquon *

* Orange * Persifer * Rio *

Salem Salem may refer to: Places Canada Ontario * Bruce County ** Salem, Arran–Elderslie, Ontario, in the municipality of Arran–Elderslie ** Salem, South Bruce, Ontario, in the municipality of South Bruce * Salem, Dufferin County, Ontario, part ...

Sparta Sparta (Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, ''Spártā''; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, ''Spártē'') was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (, ), while the name Sparta referred ...

* Truro * Victoria * Walnut Grove

Politics

Knox County's political history is typical of

Yankee The term ''Yankee'' and its contracted form ''Yank'' have several interrelated meanings, all referring to people from the United States. Its various senses depend on the context, and may refer to New Englanders, residents of the Northern United St ...

-settled Northern Illinois. It leaned Whig during its early elections – although giving a plurality to Franklin Pierce in 1852 – and become powerfully Republican following that party's formation. Although Knox did support

Progressive Progressive may refer to: Politics * Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform ** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context * Progressive realism, an American foreign policy par ...

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

against conservative incumbent President

William Howard Taft William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...

in 1912, it was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1932 landslide before Knox County again gave the Democratic Party so much as a plurality, and it did not give a Democratic absolute majority until Lyndon B. Johnson gained such against the anti-Yankee, Southern-leaning

Barry Goldwater Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and United States Air Force officer who was a five-term U.S. Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the United States Republican Party, Republ ...

in 1964. Since then, Knox County gradually trended Democratic for the following four decades, so that

Michael Dukakis Michael Stanley Dukakis (; born November 3, 1933) is an American retired lawyer and politician who served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991. He is the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history a ...

in his losing 1988 campaign was able to carry the county by the same margin as Johnson had done in 1964. During the 1990s and 2000s, Knox was a solidly Democratic county, voting Democratic by at least nine percentage points in every election from 1992 to 2012. The 2016 election, in the shadow of high unemployment in the “ Rust Belt” saw a swing of over twenty percentage points to

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of ...

, who became the first Republican victor in the county since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

References

External links

"Foxie's Knox Co., IL AHGP"
{{Coord, 40.93, -90.21, display=title, type:adm2nd_region:US-IL_source:UScensus1990 Illinois counties 1825 establishments in Illinois Populated places established in 1825 Galesburg, Illinois micropolitan area