Macktown Historic District

Macktown was an early river settlement on a high bluff above the Rock and Pecatonica Rivers near Rockton, Illinois. Founded by trader Stephen Mack, it once included a store, a tavern, a school, a furniture shop and log cabins, but only two buildings survive: the Stephen Mack House, a two-story Greek Revival frame house built in 1839 on a limestone foundation, and the limestone Whitman Trading Post, established in 1846. The district covers the townsite where building locations have been identified. Macktown matters because it was among the first settlements in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin and a stopping place on the Galena Trail, a major route from Chicago to the lead mining region. Wagon ruts still lead toward the old ferry crossing, and Mack built the area's first Rock River bridge in 1843. Many founders of Rockford and other communities lived here, and the site may hold archaeological potential.