Galena (city, Illinois)

Galena (city, Illinois), city, seat of Jo Daviess County, northwestern Illinois, on the Galena River; incorporated 1835. It is a commercial and tourist center. Noted as a well-preserved 19th-century community, with 85 percent of its buildings in the National Historic Register, the city has among its points of interest the Galena/Jo Daviess County Historical Society and Museum, Dowling House (1826), the Old Market House (1845), and a house that was built in 1859 and presented to Ulysses S. Grant in 1865. Originally called Fever River Settlement, the community was laid out in 1826 and named for the mineral galena, a principal source of lead, which had been mined in the region since about 1700. The community suffered when mining declined after 1860. Population 3,876 (1980); 3,647 (1990); 3,460 (2000); 3,405 (2005 estimate).