A town wiped from the map due to cholera, an old brick one-room schoolhouse and an old dam site were highlights of a mini road trip I took on this day.

I’ve come to appreciate Freeport’s history since I spent a year studying journalism at Highland Community College. Places such as the vast Rawleigh Building and its underpass, and an old railroad tunnel on the east side of town were fascinating enough to become my computer desktop screen displays for a while, having taken black and white photos of them. The city has become part of my expanded coverage area for the articles that I write for Sauk Valley Media’s niche publications.

It is for the reason just mentioned that brought me back to Freeport on this day. I covered a grand opening of a new business in town for one of the magazines, and its location made me drive up through an area east of Freeport that I had recently discovered had some unique history.

Nevada: Cholera-striken town

Long before Nevada became the name of a state during the Civil War (and territory before it), it also was the name of a small community about 3 miles east of Freeport near the Pecatonica River. It was established in the late 1830s, as the river at that time was just as important as a navigable route as the Chicago-Galena Stagecoach Trail (about a mile to the south) was. The town grew slowly in the 1840s and reached its apex in 1850.

Stagecoach travel eventually gave way to railroads, and Nevada was to be a beneficiary of the first rail line to go from Chicago to Galena. This was in 1836, when the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad was chartered. The Panic of 1837, however, put the plans to building a railroad on hold for a little more than a decade. Still, Nevada continued to exist, and one day it did eventually get its rails. The line was built from Chicago to Elgin in 1850, Elgin to Rockford in 1852, and Rockford to Freeport in 1853. The company ultimately settled on linking with the Illinois Central to reach Galena.

However …

As Nevada was eagerly anticipating its railroad – and likely knowing about how its coming was a boom to towns along its path such as Belvidere – the area was stricken with a deadly cholera outbreak. Cholera, to put it succinctly, is a disease that does some real gruesome things to your insides, and its carried in contaminated water. There are reports of outbreaks around 1850 from the Yellow Creek, south of Freeport, and the creek empties into the Pecatonica River not far from Nevada. Add to the fact that Freeport’s population and economy was just starting to pick up as German immigrants started their own breweries and snack companies (Pretzels); and whatever industrial waste was produced went right into the river, which flows toward Nevada.

The outbreak was severe enough to send residents fleeing from Nevada, and it eventually tanked. Typically, settlements around this time cease to exist because of railroad route bypassing, but in this case, Nevada was in line to get the railroad. The outbreak lasted from 1850-1852 and caused enough deaths that a mass grave for its victims was established at what is now the Gund Cemetery, about a mile southwest of Nevada.

Nevada became a ghost town, a reminder of the tragedy that befell the town, and its commerce later relocated to Ridott – about a mile east of Nevada. Buildings fell unused, streets were overgrown, and traces disappeared. Drive by the site today, and there’s no evidence of a town having ever been there.

Nevada was located on Cherry Hill Road, and the site was where the road makes a 90-degree curve going west and south. There is a driveway to private property at that curve, and the former right-of-way hump of the railroad is all that’s really left. Early maps show that there was once a bridge that crossed the Pecatonica River going north of Nevada, and that, too, is lost to time.

Going from Nevada to Freeport involved going south on what’s now Cherry Hill Road to its intersection with a stub of Brown’s Mill Road – a stub because part of the road now is gone – and following that road parallel to the river into Freeport. Along the way is the Gund Cemetery. When approaching it on Brown’s Mill Road, it appears that most of the stones are off into the distance, and there’s a large patch of grass before it. That empty field is where the mass grave of cholera victims is. There is a memorial stone, created many years after the outbreak, noting the tragedy.

I often wonder what would have happened if the railroad, which took 12 years to really pan out, made it through Nevada before 1853. Had an immediate recovery from the Panic of 1837 been realized, the line would have reached Nevada much sooner. It still, however, wouldn’t have quelled the cholera outbreak. In theory, Nevada would have been growing by that time had the railroad arrived sooner, and how many more people would have fallen victim to cholera? Or, if the cholera casualties had not been such a large percentage of the town’s residents, if Nevada’s remaining populace would have carried on – and it continues, and Ridott doesn’t become a thing.

Railroads were meant to bring prosperity to a town in the mid-1800s. Sadly, Nevada was far too gone for that prosperity to be realized.

Brown’s Mill

Obviously the aforementioned Brown’s Mill Road had to have been a result of a place called Brown’s Mill. Such a place was a thing.

About a half-mile north of the Gund Cemetery is where Brown’s Mill Road reaches a riverfront residential area and dead ends in a small cul-de-sac. One of the driveways from the cul-de-sac leads to the limestone building that once housed the dam, and is now a private residence. This website, linked here provides more pictures and a brief history of the mill.

The mill is best viewed from the river itself. The Pec’s snake-like meandering and thick vegetation around is makes it a prime fishing destination for locals, and there also is a boat tour business in Freeport that provides access to the water.

Limestone dam building preservation is real neat. There is an ongoing effort to preserve the one on Rock Creek in Morrison, and one in Montgomery now is a bar/restaurant/venue along the Fox River, one which played a role in the building of a stagecoach trail between Chicago and Dixon (another story for another time).

Dis. No. 5 – 1871

Between Ridott and German Valley on Rock City Road is a forlorn, boarded up brick schoolhouse that is the size of one room. Its wood-frame bell tower – sans bell – still stands along with the rest of it many, many years after it ceased to be a school.

Built in 1871 as the District No. 5 school, it sits very close to the southwest corner of Rock City and Kelley roads. This was known as the Wessels School, and served students until the consolidated building in German Valley opened in 1955. Since it ceased to be a school, it’s served as other functions, but ultimately was abandoned completely.

When I was a student at Highland, I first came across the building while delivering Highland Chronicle newspapers to local service stations. I had an interest in old school buildings, and this one was sitting right there on the side of the road – door open! And an open door meant to me: Go inside. So I did. The building was completely empty, some of the walls were torn up, and for some reason an old beat up living room chair was lying on the concrete floor. By the next time I rolled around a few years later, it was finally boarded up, and for good reason, too – you don’t want vandals wandering in and ruining a piece of local history.

(UPDATE: June 28, 2025 … I found the old pictures! They can be viewed on my Facebook page HERE)

In recent years, the site has gone from surrounding overgrowth when I first visited to being well-maintained and mowed while it still sits boarded up. Find it on Google Maps and view the past images for a difference.

The most interesting part of the Wessels School is that it is a rare survivor of a school building that actually sits right on the corner and just a few feet away from the road. Many old school buildings built so close to the road were razed for road developments or drainage/ditch building. Perhaps this is why I enjoy the site so much that any time I know I’m headed to Ridott, Rock City, Davis, German Valley – whatever – I make sure I drive by this building to see what’s new, and if it’s still standing.

Back to that railroad

The Galena and Chicago Union was the predecessor to the Chicago and North Western railroad company. This was its first line. Both the CNW and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy’s very first lime go through West Chicago.

The CNW is special to me because it was the railroad I grew up with. My grandparents’ house in Sterling was right along the busy Geneva Subdivision line connecting Chicago and Omaha. The green and gold engines later became a sight to be yearned for after Union Pacific bought the CNW in 1995. The CNW’s slanted logo with the black rectangle on top of the red circle meant “train” to me.

Anyway, the CNW entered into a period of decline in the 1960s, and buying the former Chicago Great Western didn’t really help their cause. The portion of the aforementioned Belvidere Subdivision from Freeport to Winnebago was abandoned in 1972, which removed the rail lines from where Nevada once was. Winnebago to Freeport was pulled up in the 1980s, and at the time of the CNW’s purchase it stopped in Rockford and went north on another line toward Beloit.

The line continues to exist from Rockford to Elgin under UP ownership, and is perhaps best known for being the line that serves the Illinois Railroad Museum in Union (near Marengo).

The Freeport to Rockford right-of-way has been proposed as the site of a bike path, like many old right-of-ways are. If realized, perhaps this could bring more people passing through what once was the town of Nevada more than 175 years ago. Nearly all of them wouldn’t have a clue.