Bisected by the Rock River, Rockford is named for the shallow ford used by the Galena-Chicago Stagecoach Line before the area was settled. The city’s founders were African American slave Lewis Lemon, his master Germanicus Kent and Thatcher Blake, who built a sawmill near the ford in 1834. The earliest settlers were chiefly from New York state and New England. Large numbers of Irish-born immigrants arrived in the 1850s, and a few Swedish immigrants in 1852. Learn More...