Lacon High School - Tickler Yearbook (Lacon, IL)

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L THE STORY OF LACON Colonizing a community and founding a town from wilderness and sav- agery means heroism and patience. There are stories of romance. enterprise and brilliant achievements, tales told and untold of intrigue and wrong doing, which. woven together, form a truly interesting history. The first inhabitants were undoubtedly the mound builders, and, years ago, there were traces of the monuments which belonged to that period not far from the site of Lacon. In sixteen hundred, or in the sixteenth century, Sieur Robert Cavalier de I.aSalle, the French explorer, took possession of all the Illinois country in the name of the King of France and the church. Xliith him was a force of armed men, artisans, trappers, a few priests, his trusted friend and companion. an Italian named Tonti, who was always in command in the absence of his superior. I.aSalle passed through the lakes down the Illinois River, and there is reason to believe he stopped where I.acon now stands and would have built a fort but for a large village of the I'ottawatomie tribe of Indians, who might have raised serious objections to the invasion of the French. lf LaSalle had decided to form a settlement here, and had succeeded, undoubt- edly the town would have had a French or Indian name rather than the abbre- viated lireek name it bears. Trappers and government surveyors were here in very early times. The earliest record of the first white settler was in 1818, when 'lohn Strawn and a man named Havers came from Newark, Ohio, looked the place over. and de- cided it was good. They found an open glade with an easy elevation back to the hills dotted with large oak and elm trees, an ideal place for an Indian village, and later a desirable location for a white man's town. The next year. I82Q, .lohn Strawn returned, bringing his family. The iirst winter they lived in a tent until a fine double log cabin was built. At that time the territory which now comprises Iilltllillll, Bureau, Stark and as called l'utnam in honor of Gen. Israel l'utnan1, of revo- 1831 the division of Putnam County was made and it was town where the Indian village had been before the Black Col. john Strawn and a government surveyor, named Thomas Patterson, laid out the new town, and William Strawn. a lad of fifteen years, rode a horse Marshall counties w lntionary fame. In decided to found a Hawk war trouble. dragging a log to crush down the blue-stem grass which grew as high as one's head. In their imagination they planned streets, business houses. tine homes, churches and schools. l,l'0YISlOl1S that were not furnished by rifle shot, trapping, or from the earth, were brought from Beardstown by keelboat. The new town was first called Strawn's Landing, then changed to