Dixon

Sister cities

• Herzberg (Elster)

History

Around 1828, Joseph Ogee, a man of mixed French and Native American descent, established a ferry and a cabin along the banks of the Rock River. In 1829, an employee of Ogee was named postmaster at the newly constructed post office. John Dixon, the eponymous founder, bought Ogee's Ferry in the spring of 1830 and brought his family to his newly purchased establishment on April 11 of that year. Shortly after, the name of the post office was changed to Dixon's Ferry. On May 4, 1873, the Truesdell Bridge collapsed resulting in the deaths of 46 people. About 150-200 people were on the bridge in order to watch a baptism ceremony in the river below. Running by Interstate 88 is a road named Bloody Gulch Road. The road is named after a murder and body disposal. On September 12, 1885, two young men walked along a county road south of Dixon, one a farm hand named Joseph M. Mosse and the other, Frank C. Thiel, a traveling salesman from Elgin, IL. The unemployed farmhand told the salesman of a place he could sell his Bibles and proceeded to take him to a farm where he had worked. As the two men passed a gulch the farmhand struck and killed the salesman with a knife and a walnut baluster he was seen carrying under his arm. He then buried the body in the culvert. The body was later discovered when cattle refused to use the underpass en route to a milking barn. An overnight rain had washed away some of the dirt exposing a limb. When the sheriff arrived to question the farm hand, since he was seen leaving Dixon with the deceased, he pretended to get a drink while throwing a watch chain taken from the salesman in the bushes. The evidence was found and the farmhand was eventually put in jail for life, while the road over the underpass began to be called Bloody Gulch Road. In April…

Geography

According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Dixon has a total area of , of which (or 94.93%) is land and (or 5.07%) is water. Dixon has a hot summer humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfa) with four seasons. The winters are generally cold and see frequent snowfall, while the summers are warm and humid. Typically Dixon ranges from a low of 10 °F (-12 °C) to a high of 82 °F (28 °C). A low of -32 °F (-35 °C) was recorded during the January–February 2019 North American cold wave, and a record high of 110 °F (43 °C) was recorded during the 1936 North American heat wave. Average monthly precipitation ranges from in February to in June.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  3,714
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  3,424
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  3,379
• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  3,360
• White-breasted Nuthatch

  Sitta carolinensis Latham, 1790 · Aves
  3,298
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  3,232
• Downy Woodpecker

  Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  3,222
• Red-bellied Woodpecker

  Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  3,035

Most recent

• M 3.1 — 2024-07-15
  2 km WNW of Somonauk, Illinois
• M 3.6 — 2023-11-15
  1 km SSW of Standard, Illinois
• M 2.9 — 2015-03-25
  3 km WNW of Lake in the Hills, Illinois
• M 2.6 — 2013-06-10
  4 km NNE of Virgil, Illinois
• M 3.8 — 2010-02-10
  2 km NW of Lily Lake, Illinois
• M 4.2 — 2004-06-28
  12 km NW of Dayton, Illinois