Origins

In the fall of 1835, Caleb J. Tenney of Wethersfield, Connecticut, contacted a Reverend Ithamar Pillsbury about the possibility of founding a colony in Henry County, Illinois, near the Andover Colony he had started earlier that year for a New York group. The Connecticut Association was formed and a committee of purchase consisting of Pillsbury, Colonel Sylvester Blish and Elizur Goodrich were sent west early in 1836 to select and buy land. After surveying the area, they chose a site about 22 miles east of Andover at the southern edge of a vast timber called Barren Grove. They returned east and in November of 1836 another committee, consisting of Reverand Joseph Goodrich, John F. Willard and Henry G. Little, was sent to Illinois to survey and lay out a town. Their only neighbor was John Kilvinton, who had arrived earlier and built a cabin about 1-1/2 miles north in the grove. Willard built the first cabin in Wethersfield Colony to stay the winter of 1836-37 and others were built the following spring as settlement parties arrived. The Little cabin, built in 1837, still stands at the intersection of South and Beach streets.

Wethersfield grew into a thriving village and had a population of about 130 within two years. Most of the "business district" was situated along McClure Street, west of Tenney. Then, in 1852, work began on the Central Military Tract Railroad to run from Galesburg to Chicago. In spite of efforts to bring the railroad through Wethersfield, crossing a deep slough west of the village made it cheaper to take the right-of-way on more level land to the north.

The railroad crossed the farm of brothers Matthew and John Potter. Their father, David, had come from Knox County in 1837 and purchased 160 acres just north of Wethersfield. In 1850 the Potters built a duplex-type home that stands at the northeast corner of Main and Second streets today. In 1903, Kewanee's first house was moved to Park Avenue, on the north side of West Park, where it still stands as the chapter house of the DAR.

In 1853 the Potters sold a piece of land to George Morse and Silas Willard, who became Kewanee's first businessmen when they opened the Pioneer Store, where the railroad crossed the Dixon road, now the Main Street crossing. When it was learned that a station would be built nearby, the scramble for choice lots was on! Businessmen in Wethersfield literally picked up their buildings and moved them on wheels, logs, or anything that would roll north where opportunity was certainly waiting.

A new town was laid out on May 1, 1854, Kewanee's "birthday". Among those instrumental in establishing the town were two men who had also helped lay out Wethersfield in 1837, Henry Little and Colonel Sullivan Howard. Sylvester Blish, who had the original idea of settling in this area was also in on the "ground floor" of the venture.

The first train rolled down the track in November of 1854. Folks were so happy, they wanted to name the town after the engineer who built the railroad, a man named Berrien. Colonel Berrien was not at all interested and suggested they name the new whistle stop "Kewanee", a Winnebago Indian word for prairie chicken which was common to the area at the time. Kewanee became a prairie boom town sprouting along the tracks, which were taken over in 1856 by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad.

The boom in Kewanee was the bust for Wethersfield. Businesses, churches and people moved north and Wethersfield became a cluster of homes, farms and orchards. Over the years the 1-1/2 mile gap of open prairie between the two towns closed with homes being built. Special elections on annexation held in both towns in 1924 passed by overwhelming majorities and Wethersfield officially became part of Kewanee. The combined population of the two towns, at the time, was 18,000. By that time all services had been combined, with the exception of schools and township government, which remain independent today.

Hog Capital of the World

The title of Hog Capital dates to 1948 when a resolution was introduced into the 66th Illinois General Assembly by the late Frank Preston Johnson of Kewanee, for whom Johnson Sauk Trail State Park is named.

Johnson was a former Redpath manager and was a Star Courier columnist for many years.

When the news came from Washington D.C. in 1948 that Henry County led the world in hog production, Johnson was serving in the Illinois House of Representatives.

He immediately introduced a resolution calling upon the General Assembly to recognize the Henry County championship officially, and to designate Kewanee as the "Hog Capital of the World".

As the clerk of the House read the resolution, the gallery interrupted the reading with hog calls and pig squeaks, whereupon Rep. Johnson spoke as follows:

"Mr. Speaker and ladies and gentlemen of the House:

"I had not intended to speak on this resolution - it speaks for itself. But I was deeply pained, grieved and humiliated by the raucous laughter and derisive jeers which greeted its reading.

"I would not be true to my district, to myself, or to his Imperial Majesty, King Hog, if I allowed these insults to go unanswered.

"It should not be necessary to remind you sons and daughters of Illinois of the significance of this great championship which the farmers of Henry County have brought to our beloved state.

"The hog is the very foundation of Illinois prosperity and has played a vital role in the history, the economy and the development of this great state.

"Our pioneer forefathers who cleared the wilderness and conquered these prairies were nourished and sustained on a diet of hog and hominy. The boys in blue from Illinois who ran the batteries at Vicksburg, scaled the heights of Lookout Mountain and marched with Sherman to the sea were strengthened for those ordeals by rations of salt pork from the farms back home.

"We of this House take great pride in the ability of our illustrious speaker, the Honorable Paul Powell. Whence came those sterling qualities that have molded his granite character? He came from Johnson County where they weaned their babies on bacon rind, and his youthful years were nurtured by a diet of hog jowls and turnip greens.

"We have praised our Illinois athletes for the great victories they have brought to our state - and rightly so! May I remind you that King Hog played an important role in those magnificent victories? We have been informed that the pictures of the Rose Bowl game are to be shown to this Assembly. Study those pictures and you will observe a PIGSKIN in every play.

"And watch carefully for the dramatic climax of that historic game. That climax came when a blond-haired youth from Kewanee, Illinois, the Hog Capital of the World, scampered over the California goal line for the winning touchdown.

"You can appreciate Eddie Tunnicliff's magnificent achievement when you understand that the tender years of his youth were strengthened by daily breakfasts of Henry County bacon.

"And, you, my colleagues from the great City of Chicago who grunted the loudest during the reading of the resolution, you in your innocence may cherish the delusion that you have little in common with the Illinois hog. I assure you that you do - PLENTY! Every city must have some economic justification for its existence. That was true in the ancient past and it is true today.

"Mr. Speaker, in view of these historic facts and economic truths, I ask unanimous consent for the suspension of the rules and the immediate consideration of the resolution."

At the conclusion of the eloquent speech, Rep. Johnson moved the adoption of the resolution creating Kewanee the "Hog Capital of the World".
There was no debate on the motion - after all his speech had silenced any possible critics - and the resolution was adopted by a unanimous vote.