page_title: Ottawa, Illinois
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ottawa, Illinois / History
caption_attribution_description: English: La Salle Street, looking north, Ottawa, Illinois; from a c. 1912 postcard.
context_page_description: Ottawa is a city located at the confluence of the navigable Illinois River and Fox River in LaSalle County, Illinois, United States. The Illinois River is a conduit for river barges and connects Lake Michigan at Chicago, to the Mississippi River, and North America's 25,000 mile river system. The population estimate was 18,063 as of 2019. It is the county seat of LaSalle County and it is part of the Ottawa, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area.
context_section_description: Ottawa was the site of the first of the Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858. During the Ottawa debate Stephen A. Douglas, leader of the Democratic Party, openly accused Abraham Lincoln of forming a secret bipartisan group of Congressmen to bring about the abolition of slavery.
  The John Hossack House was a "station" on the Underground Railroad, and Ottawa was a major stop because of its rail, road, and river transportation. Citizens in the city were active within the abolitionist movement. Ottawa was the site of a famous 1859 extrication of a runaway slave named Jim Gray from a courthouse by prominent civic leaders of the time. Three of the civic leaders, John Hossack, Dr. Joseph Stout and James Stout, later stood trial in Chicago for violating the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
  Ottawa was also important in the development of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which terminates in LaSalle, Illinois, 12 miles to the west. Workmen from the canal project were causing public unrest during 1838. During a citizens' meeting a local political leader, Washington Armstrong, suggested that farmer William Reddick be elected sheriff. Reddick was a popular choice due to his large stature and courageous manner. Reddick was elected by a large majority and held the office of sheriff for four consecutive two-year terms. In 1855, while serving in the Illinois State Senate, Reddick commissioned the construction of a large Italianate house for the then-large sum of $25,000. Reddick Mansion is now one of the largest surviving homes in Illinois to predate the Civil War. In 1973 the mansion was added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Washington Park Historic District.
  On February 8, 1910, William Dickson Boyce, then a resident of Ottawa, incorporated the Boy Scouts of America. Five years later, also in Ottawa, Boyce incorporated the Lone Scouts of America. Boyce is buried in Ottawa Avenue Cemetery. The Ottawa Scouting Museum, on Canal Street, opened to the public on December 6, 1997. The museum features the history of Boy Scouting, Girl Scouting and Camp Fire.
  In 1922, the Radium Dial Company (RDC) moved from Peru, Illinois to a former high school building in Ottawa. The company employed hundreds of young women who painted watch dials using a paint called "Luna,” which contained ionizing radion, for watch maker Westclox. RDC went out of business in 1936, two years after the company's president, Joseph Kelly Sr., left to start a competing company, Luminous Processes Inc., a few blocks away. The employees of the company suffered radiation toxicity as chronicled in the 1986 documentary, Radium City.
caption: La Salle Street c. 1912
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