Fulton County Courthouse ~ Lewistown, IL - Courthouses on Waymarking.com

Text of Sign on Courthouse Lawn: This Courthouse Plaza is presented to the people of Fulton County that they may rededicate themselves to the preservation of the freedoms fought for 200 years ago. May all cherish the rich heritage of the past, enjoy the festival of the present, and work for the bright horizons of the future.

The first settler of Fulton County was Ossian Ross, who came to the site of Lewistown in 1821 to claim his land grant of one-quarter section in the Military Tract of Illinois. In 1822, the town site of Lewistown was laid out and named for Lewis, Mr. Ross’s eldest son. The first Court House of Fulton County was built in Lewistown from hewn logs in 1823. The first brick and stone courthouse was later erected in 1838 and served until December of 1894 when it was destroyed by fire. The current Fulton County Courthouse was built in 1897 to replace the earlier Courthouse destroyed by fire

Named for Robert Fulton [1765-1815] who was an inventor. His most famous invention was the Clermont, a steamboat, which sailed on the Hudson River in 1807.
Formed on 28 Jan 1823 primarily from Pike County, Illinois. From 1823 to 1825, the majority of Illinois north of the Illinois River was unorganized territory under the jurisdiction of Fulton County. This included the current site of Chicago, Illinois.

The Fulton County boundaries in 1823 included small portions currently in Knox, Peoria, and Schuyler counties. The formation of those three counties in 1825 resulted in the current boundaries of Fulton County.

Before his brick house was finished, however, Major Walker had achieved some renown in Fulton County and throughout central Illinois as the designer and builder of the county's third courthouse — an impressive Greek Revival edifice, completed in 1838, that became the pride of Lewistown.

Another County site: Fulton Co.