Dutch culture has remained a strong part of Fulton since its earliest days, beginning with the arrival of the first Dutch settlers. In 1856, Thomas Smith became the first of many Dutch to settle in Fulton. At first, Dutch settlers came from Chicago and Michigan, but they soon began arriving directly from the Netherlands, with close personal connections helping them build a community in the New World. Most early immigrants came from the northern part of the Netherlands. Dutch immigrants shaped Fulton by working for the railroads, in factories and sawmills, as merchants, and as farmers, and Dutch immigration to the Fulton area reached its peak in the early 1900s. The Dutch Reformed Church, organized in Fulton in 1866, stood at the center of religious and social life and was also a place to hear and speak Dutch. Fulton's Dutch heritage is also expressed through “de Immigrant,” the only working Dutch windmill in Illinois and one of only two in the United States; it was engineered and built in the Netherlands, shipped to the United States in pieces, and rebuilt in Fulton by Dutch workers. Since 1974, Fulton's annual Dutch Days Festival, held the first weekend in May, has celebrated the Dutch people and culture that shaped the community.