Macktown, a Living History Education Center, is organized to restore and interpret the cultural lifeways of this early Pecotonic Settlement, one of Winnebago County, Illinois' first communities.

A LIVING HISTORY
EDUCATION CENTER
Macktown is not a destination,
...it's an adventure!

2221 Freeport Road * PO Box 566 * Rockton, Illinois 61072 * 815.624.4200

Macktown ...stand in the presence of the past.

On a forested bluff overlooking the Rock and Pecatonica Rivers in Rockton are the remnants of Winnebago County's earliest settlement. It was founded in 1829 by Stephen Andrew Mack, Jr., and his wife, Hononegah. Macktown, then known as Pekatonic, represents a time and place of change on the Illinois frontier when the fur trade collided with a progressive world.
In prosperous times, Pekatonic boasted of the Mack's two-story home and store, a furniture store, a school room, a shoemaker's shop, a tavern, a trading post, fur trapper's cabins, and other homes belonging to the population of 300. A ferry and bridge traversed the Rock River.

Following Mack's death in 1850 and the destruction of the bridge in 1851, the Macktown settlement area failed to thrive. The northern part of the settlement prospered and officially became known as Rockton in 1844.

Macktown: A Living History Education Center Board and the Winnebago County Forest Preserve, which owns Macktown Historic District, have plans to restore Macktown to its 1830 - 1846 historic condition.

Click here for more information.
Click here to see and read about the ongoing Stephen Mack building project.

~~ click here for a printable map to Macktown ~~