Early French traders traveling the Rock River named the large bend southwest of this point Grand Detour. Winnebago and Potawatomi villages in the area made it a prominent location for fur trading posts, and during the 1820's the United States government granted licenses to traders at Grand Detour on Rocky River. Permanent settlement began after Leonard Andrus traveled up the Rock River in 1834 in search of a town site. Impressed by the natural beauty of the region and the power and transportation potential of the river, Andrus claimed the land and in 1836 laid out a village. A year later John Deere, a Vermont blacksmith, settled there. In his shop, Deere heard farmers complain that the rich Illinois soil stuck to the wooden and iron plows they had brought from the East. He shaped a steel plow from a discarded saw blade from the Andrus sawmill, and the soil slid smoothly off its highly polished steel surface. As demand for his plows increased, Deere began production using steel imported from England and later from Pennsylvania. High freight costs led him in 1847 to move to Moline, Illinois, on the Mississippi River, where he began manufacturing plows in quantity. Because the Rock River was never developed for navigation and the railroads bypassed the community, Grand Detour retains much of its nineteenth century atmosphere.

Grand Detour, Illinois · USA