LACON, p-v, capital of Marshall co. Ill, 99 N. Springfield, 816 W. Situated on the E. side of Illinois r, and contains 3 stores, and about 20 dwellings. (Haskell's Complete Descriptive and Statistical Gazetteer of the the United States...,1840)
LACON The county seat of Marshall county, is situated on the east bank of Illinois river, thirty-five miles south from La Salle and thirty north from Peoria. The town was laid out in 1831 and was originally called Columbia. In 1836 extensive additions were made to its limits and in the succeeding year the name was changed to Lacon. In 1840 the number of inhabitants did not exceed 200, and in 1850 about 600. By far the larger portion of the inhabitants are Americans, New Englanders and their descendants. The foreigners are chiefly Irish and Germans. The principal business carried on here is that of pork and beef packing: in the winter of 1856-7 it amounted to over $230,000. The grain trade is also very extensive, and the total estimate of the trade and commerce of the city for 1856 was $1,500,000. There is here a large packing house costing $20,000, 2 large flouring mills costing from $70,000 to $80,000. It also contains three handsome churches — Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist—one of the finest court houses in the state, a large and elegant public school building, erected for "free school" purposes, at an expense of $8,000; a jail, the outer walls of which are built of brick and the partition walls between the cells of massive blocks of Athens marble, costing $17,000; ten dry goods and grocery stores, two drug stores, two clothing stores, two hotels, one large plow factory and agricultural warehouse, one carriage shop, three lumber yards, two newspapers — Gazette and Intelligencer— and the usual supply of ministers, lawyers, doctors, milliners, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, shoe makers, daguerreian artists, etc. A few years since Lacon was invested with city corporate powers. Its commercial advantages are superior, lying as it does on the banks of a navigable stream, and but one mile from a branch of tie Rock Island railroad. The American Central railway, now partly graded, crosses the northern limits of the town. This road, when completed, will connect the seaboard cities of the east, with Council Bluffs, in the far west. The surrounding country is unsurpassed for fertility and productiveness, and is inhabited by an industrious, intelligent, and thrifty rural population. Population, about 2,000. Jas. W. Maxwell, Postmaster. (Hawes' Illinois State Gazetteer...,1859)