Pioneer helped turn Little Fort into Waukegan

One of the most prominent individuals in the development of early Waukegan was Daniel O. Dickinson.

Dickinson was born in 1816 in Jefferson County, N.Y. In 1838, he settled in Lemont where he operated a general store, providing provisions to the workers on the Illinois-Michigan Canal. The 100-mile commercial waterway (built between 1836 and 1848) linked Lake Michigan in Chicago with the Illinois River in Peru, Ill., and helped transform northern Illinois from a sparsely settled frontier to a commercial, agricultural and industrial region.

Dickinson moved to Waukegan (then known as Little Fort) in 1841 and formed a short-term partnership, known as the Kneeland & Dickinson Company, that built a gristmill, mercantile building and warehouse. In June 1843, Dickinson, Jacob Bloom and Elmsley Sunderlin agreed to work together to build a pier. Sunderlin supplied the milled timbers and Dickinson and Bloom constructed the pier far enough out into Lake Michigan to provide access to shipping vessels. It was the first pier at Little Fort and was key in facilitating the growth and development of the young town by allowing goods, services and passengers to arrive directly by large ships.

Before the first courthouse was completed in 1844, court proceedings were conducted from a rented portion of Dickinson's building, known as Dickinson's Hall. The multistoried building was at Sheridan Road and Washington Street and was the primary meeting and event location for the village until it burned in 1866.

Dickinson became Little Fort's postmaster in 1842, was elected the county treasurer in 1843, county commissioner in 1845, and Waukegan's first president in 1849 when the village was incorporated with a population of 2,500.

On April 2, 1861, Abraham Lincoln, at that time a lawyer of the U.S. District Court, was scheduled to speak at Dickinson's Hall. Lincoln's speech was famously interrupted by a fire at a warehouse on the lakefront. Those in attendance disbanded to help put out the blaze (or to watch) and Lincoln reportedly jumped in to lend a hand.

Dickinson's ventures made him a very wealthy man - possibly the wealthiest in Waukegan at the time. His fortune was valued at $250,000, or about $5 million in today's market. He was so prominent a businessman that he became a founding member of the Chicago Board of Trade.

In 1857, Dickinson lost his fortune and ownership of his mill and warehouse in grain speculation.

He continued with various business ventures, to less success, until his death in 1869 and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery.