24/7 Biohazard Cleanup Near Fulton Historic District Fulton, IL

Fulton is a city in Whiteside County in northwestern Illinois, sitting on the east bank of the Mississippi River directly across from Clinton, Iowa.

The city was named for Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, and its post office has been in operation since 1838.

The first European settler, John Baker, arrived in 1835 and ran a ferry crossing, so the settlement was first known as Baker's Ferry.

The 2020 census counted 3,647 people and 1,613 households in Fulton.

Fulton is famous for its Dutch heritage - Dutch immigrants, many from the province of Groningen, began settling here after Thomas Smith became the first Dutch settler in 1856.

After a devastating Mississippi River flood in 1965 led to a protective dike, residents joked that a town with a dike needed a windmill - and the idea eventually became reality.

De Immigrant, Fulton's authentic Dutch windmill, was built in the Netherlands, shipped across the Atlantic in pieces and reassembled by Dutch craftsmen on the riverfront dike, where it was dedicated in 2000.

The roughly 100-foot-tall windmill still grinds grain into stone-ground flour, and the neighboring Windmill Cultural Center displays 22 model windmills from ten European countries.

Fulton celebrates its roots at Dutch Days, held on the first full weekend of May every year since 1974.

Heritage Canyon recreates an 1800s settlement - with a schoolhouse, blacksmith shop and church - on the 12-acre site of a former quarry.