Rockford Township dates to 1834, and 21% of its homes were built before 1940
35 places in town are on the National Register, among them a historic district with 6 buildings. Below: 4 old photos and papers, maps from 1949 on, and the census since 1860.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Places that used to be
Lost post offices, old corners, places now gone and burying grounds
Three other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
Kishwaukee
1838–1905
New Milford
1850–1910
South Bend
1859–1865
18301930today
Hamlets and corners on the map
Anns Mobile Home ParkBrewster HeightsCecka Mobile Home ParkClarks Mobile Home ParkCoreys BluffGrant View HeightsHarrisvilleHickory CreekIndian VillageKishwaukeeLonesome AcresMotor HeightsNew MilfordRockford Mobile Home ParkWestmorelandWoodcrest
Gone or out of use
Cooling QuarrymineCutler FarmlocaleDavey FarmlocaleEddy SchoolschoolJohns QuarrymineRockview QuarrymineSouth Bend Schoolschool
5cemeteries and burying grounds inside Rockford Township
CarmanCherry ValleyKishwaukeeMarshNew Milford
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Help out
Start Rockford Township’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Rockford Township’s history is told.
Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Rockford traces its roots to 1834, as the combined settlements of Midway were founded on both banks of the Rock River. On the west bank, Germanicus Kent and Thatcher Blake (with his slave Lewis Lemon) founded Kentville; the east bank was settled by Daniel Shaw Haight. With the location of the Rock River equidistant between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River, the combined settlement derived the name "Midway". In 1836, Winnebago County was created (from both Jo Daviess and LaSalle counties), with Midway named as its county seat, as it was "halfway between Galena and Chicago on a line of four-horse coaches."
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Rockford Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1949Camp Grant sheet · 1:24,000
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Rockford Township.
Then & now
Stand where they stood
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Retake this viewLooking north from Winnebago County at Rockford, Ill, 1870
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Rockford Township’s page.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (4), Wikidata (2), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
1876
