DIXON  , a

city and the county seat of Lee county, Illinois, U.S.A., on the Rock river, in the N.W. part of the state . Pop . (1890) 5161; (1900) 7917 (879 foreign-born); (191o) 7216 . It is served by the Chicago & North-Western and the Illinois Central railways, and is connected with Sterling by an electric line; freight is shipped over the Hennepin Canal . The city has two parks of 159 and 6 acres respectively, and there is a Chautauqua Park, where an annual Chautauqua Assembly is held . Dixon is the seat of the Northern Illinois normal school (incorporated in 1884), and of the Rock River military academy . The river furnishes water power for the street railways, electric lighting and a number of manufacturing establishments . Among the manufactures are condensed milk, boxes, wire screens and wire cloth, lawn mowers, gas engines, cement, agricultural implements, shoes and wagons . The place was laid out in 1835 by John Dixon (1784–1876), the first white settler of Lee county . A bronze tablet in the Howells Building, at the inter-section of First and Peoria Streets, marks the site of his cabin, and in the city cemetery a granite shaft has been erected to his memory . Dixon was chartered as a city in 1859 .