Ford County

Ford county, formed in 1859 from part of Vermilion County in east central Illinois just east of the Bloomington metro area, is the youngest of all Illinois' 102 counties. It is named after Thomas Ford, the eighth Governor of Illinois and uses Paxton as its county seat.

The county was the temporary home of Augustana College, having moved from Chicago in 1863 and it remained until 1875. Today the college calls Rock Island home.

There is a large Scandanavian influence in the area, having first been settled by the Swedish and then by Norwegians. As an interesting anecdote, the town of Sibley was noted in Ripley's Believe It Or Not as having the "World's Largest Corn Crib."

The county population on July 1, 1999, was 14,045, a decrease of 230 over the 1990 census.

Location: Paxton Illinois

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