Sycamore is a city in DeKalb County, Illinois, United States. It has a commercial district based and centered on Illinois Route 64. The population was 18577 at the 2020 census, up from 17,519 at the 2010 census. Sycamore is the county seat of DeKalb County and was named after the sycamore tree.

History

Early settlement

The first European settlers to the Sycamore-area arrived in 1835 and concentrated themselves mostly north of the Kishwaukee River and the present site of Sycamore. The original town was platted by a New Yorker named Christian Sharer. A mill was constructed and the Kishwaukee dammed but the town failed. By 1837, after some controversy, the location of

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 ...

was settled in favor of Orange, Sycamore's original name, and the settlement moved to the present-day site of the city.Wagner, Robert.
Sycamore Historic District
," ( PDF), National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form, December 13, 1978, ''

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency The Illinois Historic Preservation Division, formerly Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Illinois, and is a division of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. It is tasked with the duty of m ...

'', accessed May 21, 2008. The present-day town site was platted by James Waterman and Evans Wharry in 1837 (the same year Chicago was founded). The first settler at the new site was Carlos Lattin, who preceded the town, having arrived in 1835. Lattin staked a claim that included most of the present west side of the city and erected his first cabin just north of downtown.

County seat location

Early in the city's history, it seemed that Sycamore might not be the location of the DeKalb County Courthouse: other towns were vying for the

title. A now-defunct town called Brush Point was the choice of a Dr. Henry Madden; and the Clerk of the Court Rufus Colton would have preferred Coltonville, where he made his home. Colton had set the first session of county court to be held at his home in Coltonville. In his attempt to make Coltonville the county seat, Colton decided to hold a new election for the status in 1837. Colton made sure that Coltonville would win the election by telling only the population of Coltonville about it. His political tactics were eventually cancelled by an act of the

Illinois General Assembly The Illinois General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois. It has two chambers, the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1 ...

,Klein, Ron and McIntyre, Mac.
Looking Back at the DeKalb County Courthouse
," ''DeKalb County Online''. Retrieved May 21, 2008. after the DeKalb County court intervened. When court convened the

sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...

served a court order declaring Sycamore had built a Courthouse and that the Court session should be held there. Afterward, Coltonville eventually suffered the same fate as Brush Point and disappeared from the map. These events settled for a time the issue of where the courthouse and, in turn, the DeKalb County seat was going to be located.History of DeKalb County Courthouse
, 16th Judicial Circuit, 2005. Retrieved May 21, 2008. In 1903, as the county prepared to construct a new courthouse, the debate over county seat was reignited. This time, it was the city of DeKalb that sought to wrest the title of county seat away from Sycamore. Two of DeKalb's most prominent citizens,

Jacob Haish Jacob Haish (March 9, 1826 – February 19, 1926) was one of the first inventors of barbed wire. His type of barbed wire was in direct competition with the other barbed wire manufacturers in DeKalb, Illinois. He was a known carpenter and architec ...

and

Isaac L. Ellwood Isaac Leonard Ellwood (August 3, 1833 – September 11, 1910) was an American rancher, businessman and barbed wire entrepreneur. Early life Ellwood was born in Salt Springville, New York. His first taste of business came as a young boy when he beg ...

, each promised to donate $20,000 to help absorb some of the new building's cost. The city of Sycamore responded, raising funds of their own, and after some back and forth and legal wrangling, the issue was settled in Sycamore's favor.

Later settlement

Following the end of the second county seat controversy, in 1839, the first DeKalb County Courthouse was built in the city, as well as Sycamore's first hotel. A year later the settlement consisted of 12 houses, which increased to 18 by 1844. Sycamore then began an era of steady growth marked by population increases in 1848 to 262, 1849 to 320, 1850 to 390, 1851 to 435. The Sycamore and Cortland Railroad arrived in the late 1850s and a station was erected in Sycamore. Sycamore was home to 41 commercial and industrial business by 1855. In 1858, Sycamore was incorporated as a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

. Following the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...

the railroad began to assist Sycamore's growth and the settlement was incorporated as a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be de ...

in 1869.

Maria Ridulph murder

Sycamore is the location of a notable cold case, the 1957 abduction and murder of 7-year-old Maria Ridulph. On the evening of December 3, 1957, Maria disappeared while playing outside her family's Sycamore home. She was last seen by her playmate Kathy Chapman (née Sigman) with a young man who called himself "Johnny" and had approached the girls offering them piggyback rides. A search and investigation by local and state police and the FBI failed to locate either Maria or "Johnny", and the following April, Maria's body was found in a field approximately 100 miles from Sycamore. The case remained unsolved for over 50 years until in 2011, Jack Daniel McCullough, a former neighbor of the Ridulphs, was arrested and convicted of kidnapping and murdering Maria. The case received national news coverage as the oldest cold case in US history to result in a conviction. However, in April 2016, McCullough's conviction was overturned and he was released from prison after a post-conviction review of the evidence indicated that he could not have committed the crime.

2010 earthquake

On the morning of February 10, 2010 at 3:59 a.m., Sycamore was near the epicenter of an

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

. The shock had a moment magnitude of 3.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IV (''Light''). It was felt away in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County, Wisconsin, Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin b ...

. When the quake was first reported, it was thought Sycamore was the epicenter. However, revised data from the

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

determined the epicenter to be closer to

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

. This was the first

in Northern

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 ...

since a M4.2 (intensity V (''Moderate'')) event in 2004.

Geography

Sycamore is located along Illinois Route 64 (State Street in Sycamore) about southeast of Rockford and west-northwest of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. It is along the south bank of the East Branch of the South Branch Kishwaukee River in DeKalb County. According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Sycamore has a total area of , of which (or 99.43%) is land and (or 0.57%) is water. The terrain in Sycamore and the surrounding area is gently rolling and contains rich soil which was originally heavily forested.

Cityscape

The commercial district of Sycamore is based on Illinois Route 64, and stretches about a mile down starting from the intersection of route 64 with

Illinois Route 23 Illinois Route 23 (IL 23) is a north–south state highway in northern Illinois. It runs from Illinois Route 116 in Pontiac north to U.S. Route 14 south of Harvard. This is a distance of . Illinois 23 was established in 1918 as one of the ...

and ending at Center Cross Road. The district is composed of two-story shops, a bank, small movie theater, and former

Midwest Museum of Natural History The Midwest Museum of Natural History was a 501(c)3 organization located in Sycamore, Illinois, United States. In 1875, the structure was built as the home of the Universalist Church in Sycamore. In the 1920s the building underwent dramatic change ...

. The town also has the county courthouse, built in 1904, of limestone.

Demographics

As of the 2020 census there were 18,577 people, 7,083 households, and 4,602 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 7,792 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 83.03%

White White is the lightness, lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully diffuse reflection, reflect and scattering, scatter all the ...

, 3.20%

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

, 0.46% Native American, 2.25% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 3.50% from other races, and 7.54% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties for ...

or Latino of any race were 9.31% of the population. There were 7,083 households, out of which 60.74% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.45% were married couples living together, 14.85% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.03% were non-families. 27.05% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.19% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.12 and the average family size was 2.51. The city's age distribution consisted of 24.8% under the age of 18, 10.8% from 18 to 24, 25.8% from 25 to 44, 25.1% from 45 to 64, and 13.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37.0 years. For every 100 females, there were 83.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 77.2 males. The median income for a household in the city was $65,924, and the median income for a family was $82,318. Males had a median income of $53,784 versus $35,290 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...

for the city was $33,586. About 9.2% of families and 9.6% 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 11.2% of those under age 18 and 11.3% of those age 65 or over.

Economy

Sycamore has never had a large manufacturing or industrial sector. Among Sycamore's early industries were Marsh Harvester Manufacturing, R. Ellwood Manufacturing, and Sycamore Preserve Works. Marsh Harvester was established in 1859, Ellwood in 1875 and the preserve works in 1891. R. Ellwood Manufacturing relocated to DeKalb in 1891. Today,

Ideal Industries Ideal Industries is an American company that produces connectors, hand tools, testers, and meters for the electrical and telecommunications industries. The company manufactures many of its products in the United States. It also owns Western Fo ...

a privately owned manufacturer is based in Sycamore.

Arts and culture

Tourism

Sycamore IL Courthouse lawn Pumpkin Fest 2007

Sycamore is home to the annual Sycamore Pumpkin Festival, a pumpkin festival established in 1962 when local resident Wally Thurow began displaying pumpkins on his front lawn. The festival features many activities, a carnival, and a parade. The lawn of the DeKalb County Courthouse is the center of the event and includes a display of decorated and carved pumpkins.Frillman, Carrie.
Pumpkin enthusiasts pack streets
, '' Daily Chronicle'' ( DeKalb, Illinois), October 28, 2007, accessed May 21, 2008. The event attracts thousands to Sycamore from locations throughout northern Illinois, the Midwest, and the broader United States.McMurray, Andy.
Families travel from near and far to see Pumpkin Parade
, '' Daily Chronicle'' ( DeKalb, Illinois), October 30, 2006, accessed May 21, 2008.Johnson, David.
Pumpkins aplent -- thousands gather for fest
, '' Daily Chronicle'' ( DeKalb, Illinois), October 26, 2002, accessed May 21, 2008. The city is also home to the

Sycamore Historic District The Sycamore Historic District is a meandering area encompassing of the land in and around the downtown of the DeKalb County, Illinois county seat, Sycamore. The area includes historic buildings and a number of historical and Victorian homes. ...

, an architecturally interesting area containing over 200 individual properties.Bigolin, Steve.
Welcome to a bright new town - Sycamore: A wealth of sites will be covered in this tour
", '' Daily Chronicle'' ( DeKalb, Illinois), August 14, 2006, accessed May 21, 2008. The district was established in 1978 when it was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

. The area is bounded in an irregular pattern along Main and Somonauk Streets but contains portions of several other streets and includes much of the downtown commercial district and residential areas north and south of downtown. During the summer, the Sycamore Historical Society offers guided walking tours with a local historian.Staff.
Year's last guided walking tour of the Sycamore Historic District is Sunday
, '' Daily Chronicle'' ( DeKalb, Illinois), August 27, 2007, accessed May 21, 2008. Sycamore is also home to the former

, which featured a varied taxidermy collection and closed in February 2020.

Historic sites

File:ElmwoodCemeteryGates1.jpg, Elmwood Cemetery Gates (1865) File:Sycamore_Il_DeGraff_House3.jpg, David DeGraff House (1867) in the

File:Frederick_Townsend_Residence6.jpg,

Frederick B. Townsend House The Frederick B. Townsend House is located in the DeKalb County, Illinois county seat of Sycamore. The home is within the boundaries of the Sycamore Historic District. The district was designated and listed on the National Register of Historic ...

bed and breakfast (1892) File:Townsend_Garage.jpg,

Frederick Townsend Garage The Frederick Townsend Garage is located in Sycamore, Illinois and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Sycamore Historic District. It sits at the base of a small incline overlooked by the large Queen Anne style To ...

(1905) File:Sycamore_Historic_District1_0.jpg, Prairie style Wally Thurow House (1917)

Government

Sycamore features a Council-Manager government. Policy is developed by an elected

City Council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...

and then implemented by an appointed professional City Manager. The Sycamore City Council consists of a Mayor elected at-large and eight Aldermen representing one of four wards (two per ward). The Mayor and Aldermen serve four year terms, with one Alderman from each ward being elected every two years. Sycamore's current mayor is Steve Braser.

Education

Public schooling began in Sycamore as early as 1839, with classes held in the first DeKalb County Courthouse, a log building across the street from the courthouse's current location.DeKalb County Courthouse
", Taming the Wild Prairie Digitization Project, 2004, '' Northern Illinois University'', accessed May 21, 2008. The city's first school building was built in 1853. Current public education needs in Sycamore are provided by Sycamore Community Unit School District 427. The current Superintendent of Sycamore School District is Steve Wilder. The district operates Sycamore High School, Sycamore Middle School, and five elementary schools. The newest elementary school, North Grove, opened in 2009 was built for access by the nearby subdivision.

Notable people

* David Boies, attorney, born in Sycamore *

Bryan Carter Bryan Carter (born July 11, 1990 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American drummer, vocalist, composer, arranger, orchestrator and bandleader. Early life and education Bryan Carter was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He was introduced to the drums by ...

, musician, lived in Sycamore *

Adam C. Cliffe Adam C. Cliffe (June 25, 1869 – June 12, 1928) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Education and career Born in Sycamore, Illinois, Cliffe received a Bachelor of Laws f ...

, United States court judge *

Reuben Ellwood Reuben Ellwood (February 21, 1821 – July 1, 1885) was a U.S. Representative from Illinois. Biography Reuben Ellwood was born in Minden, New York on February 21, 1821, to Abraham and Sarah Ellwood. He attended public schools in New York be ...

Republican U.S. Representative from Illinois. (d.1885). Buried in Elmwood Cemetery. *

William J. Fulton William John Fulton (January 14, 1875 – March 24, 1961) was a Canadian-born American jurist. He became an Illinois lawyer and judge, serving as city attorney for Sycamore, Illinois, a circuit court judge for DeKalb County, Illinois, appeallate j ...

, Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, lived in Sycamore * Mark Johnston, former cornerback for Houston Oilers, born in Sycamore *

Ben Niemann Ben Niemann (born July 27, 1995) is an American football linebacker for the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Iowa. Early life and high school Niemann was born in Des Moines, Iowa and moved s ...

, linebacker for NFL's

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The t ...

. Won the

Super Bowl 2020 Super Bowl LIV was an American football game played to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2019 season. The American Football Conference (AFC) champion Kansas City Chiefs defeated the National Football Conferenc ...

. *

Nick Niemann Nick Niemann (born December 2, 1997) is an American football linebacker for the Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League (NFL). He was selected with the 185th Pick of the 2021 NFL Draft. He played college football at Iowa. Coll ...

, linebacker for the Los Angeles Chargers. * Maria Ridulph (1950–1957), child murder victim * Alvah Sabin, politician, congressman, lived in Sycamore * Frederick B. Townsend, judge, mayor of Sycamore *

Floyd K. Whittlemore Floyd K. Whittemore (October 2, 1844 – March 4, 1907) was an American politician and businessman. Born in Auburn, New York, Whittemore and his family moved to Sycamore, Illinois in 1848. He went to the Sycamore public schools. Whittemore work ...

, Illinois state treasurer *

David A. Wirsling David A. Wirsing (August 5, 1937 – November 16, 2003) was an American farmer and politician. Wirsing was born in Sycamore, Illinois and went to Sycamore High School. He served in the United States Army and the reserves from 1957 to 1964. Wir ...

, Illinois representative and farmer, born in Sycamore

References

External links

Official Website
{{authority control Cities in Illinois County seats in Illinois Populated places established in 1835 Cities in DeKalb County, Illinois 1835 establishments in Illinois