Elgin, Illinois (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
| Birth: | Nov. 26, 1898 Chicago Cook County Illinois, USA |
| Death: | May 9, 1963 San Francisco San Francisco County California, USA |
 Grandson of Alic “Alex” and Aletta Nelson of Sweden.Son of Charles “Chas” F. Nelson and Lena (Nilson) Nelson of Sweden. Husband of Gladys Serena (Linderman) of Dubuque, Dubuque County, Iowa. Married on 26 November 1926 in Dubuque, Iowa. Father of Roy Leonard Jr., Richard Edward “Dickie”, and Shirley Lorraine Nelson(Ogle) of Iowa. Source: My Maternal Second Cousin, Roy Leonard “Jimmy” Nelson Jr. told me that his father was from ELGIN, ILLINOIS, and died in San Francisco, California. He told me that he was buried in a pauper’s cemetery because he had no money. Cemetery name unknown. Family links: Spouse:
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| Elgin (pron.: /ˈɛldʒɨn/) is a city in northern Illinois located roughly 40 mi (64 km) northwest of Chicago on the Fox River. Most of Elgin lies within Kane County, Illinois, with a portion in Cook County, Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 108,188, making it the eighth-largest city in Illinois and the 241st largest city in the United States. | |
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Black Hawk Indian War of 1832 led to the expulsion of the Native Americans who had settlements and burial mounds in the area, and set the stage for the founding of Elgin. Thousands of militiamen and soldiers of Gen. Winfield Scott‘s army marched through the Fox River valley during the war and accounts of the area’s fertile soils and flowing springs soon filtered east.
In New York, James T. Gifford and his brother Hezekiah Gifford heard tales of this area ripe for settlement, and travelled west. Looking for a site on the stagecoach route from Chicago to Galena, they eventually settled on a spot where the Fox River could be bridged. In April 1835, they established the city, naming[2] it after the Scottish hymn “Elgin”.
In 1849, the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad reached Elgin, which later would be served by railroads running along both banks of the Fox River, linking the growing town to Chicago and other urban centers.[4] Early Elgin achieved fame for the butter and dairy goods it sold to the city of Chicago. Gail Borden established a condensed milk factory here in 1866, and the local library is named in his honor. The dairy industry became less important with the arrival of the Elgin Watch Company. The watch factory employed three generations of Elginites from the late 19th to the mid 20th century, when it was the largest producer of fine watches in the United States (the factory ceased production in the early 1960s and was torn down in 1965). Today, the clocks at Chicago’s Union Station still bear the Elgin name.
In 1872, Elgin attracted a major state institution, the Northern Illinois State Mental Hospital[4] and later a Veterans Administration Hospital.
Elgin has a long tradition of education and invention. Elgin is home to the Elgin Academy, the oldest coeducational, non-sectarian college preparatory school west of the Allegheny Mountains. Elgin High School boasts five navy admirals, a Nobel Prize winner, a Pulitzer Prize winner, a Tony Award winner, two Academy Award–winning producers, Olympic athletes and a General Motors CEO among its alumni. Elgin resident John Murphy invented the motorized streetsweeper in 1914 and later formed the Elgin Sweeper Corporation. Pioneering African-American chemist Lloyd Hall was an Elgin native, as was the legendary marketer and car stereo pioneer Earl “Madman” Muntz and Max Adler, founder of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, America’s first planetarium. ~~source: Wikipedia
Related articles
- Gladys Serena Linderman Nelson~Wife of Roy Leonard Nelson Sr.~Dubuque, Iowa (nelsongenealogy.wordpress.com)
- Alic and Aletta Nelson~Swedish Ancestors~Emigrated to Illinois in 1870 (nelsongenealogy.wordpress.com)
Official logo of Dubuque, Iowa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Galena’s Grant Park Pedestrian Bridge (Photo credit: OldOnliner)
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