Feature Image: June 2017. 4.37mb DSC_0785. The statue of Ronald Reagan by American sculptor Donald L. Reed in DIxon, Illinois, was dedicated on August 14, 2009. It is based on a photograph of Reagan when he visited Dixon in 1950 and rode a horse through its streets in a parade. The statue itself is nine feet high on its pedestal and called Begins the Trail. It is the first of a series that includes a life-sized statue for the Reagan Foundation at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, called Along the Trail. These artworks capture Reagan’s rugged amiable nature and his natural ability throughout life when riding. see – https://www.cowboysindians.com/2016/02/ronald-reagan-rides-again/ – retrieved April 13, 2025.
All text and photographs (except where noted) by John P. Walsh.
Considered the heart of Dixon, the memorial arch has been a landmark since the 1920s. The original arch, built in 1919, was made of beaver board and wood. It was built to celebrate the return of Dixon’s soldiers after World War One. In 1949, a new arch was constructed of wood. It was replaced in 1966 when Galena Avenue was widened. In 1985 the arch was replaced with this fiberglass one with the letters from the 1966 arch. In 2024 it went through a major restoration.
See – https://www.wifr.com/2024/06/04/dixons-iconic-memorial-arch-facing-repairs/ – retrieved February 28, 2025.
This helicopter (above and below) wears five Purple Hearts carved from enemy ground fire in Vietnam — battered, scorched, and shot to pieces, yet every time it clawed its way back through the smoke, it delivered its crew home alive. In Dixon’s (Illinois) Veterans Memorial Park founded in 2001 the 1967 AH-1F Cobra Attack Helicopter Gunship (serial #67-15475) was issued to the 7th Squadron of the First Calvary Divisions Aviation Group for its entire tour of duty. This helicopter arrived in Vietnam in March 1967. Following 1142 combat hours flown, the helicopter was damaged on July 27, 1969, because of a weapons malfunction. At 1792 hours flown it was shot down on February 6, 1970, by heavy enemy ground fire while providing armed escort to medivac helicopters with both crewmen wounded. On April 15, 1970, at 1954 hours flown, it was damaged while providing direct fire support to infantry. On July 13, 1970, it was shot down by small arms fire while providing escort at 2092 hours. At 2471 hours, on January 19, 1971, it was severely damaged by gunfire while providing direct escort protection to ground troops. On July 6, 1971, it was damaged by heavy ground fire on an armed escort mission at 2745 hours flown. see – Cobra Attack Helicopter – Veterans Memorial Park & Museum – retrieved April 13, 2025.
On June 5, Ronald Reagan’s death day, Honor Guard gather at the Reagan Boyhood Home in Dixon, Illinois.
Reagan was a lifeguard at Lowell Park from 1926 to 1932. The original 200-acre public park opened in 1907 and began Dixon’s park system with the objective to preserve scenic beauty and establish civic beautification. From the start, Lowell Park attracted large numbers of people to its location along the Rock River. In this area, the valley of the Rock River contains bluffs and unique rock outcroppings that create a natural beauty. More than 100 years later, Lowell Park has maintained its distinctive scenic and natural recreational resources for free public use.
Lowell Park predated the development of Illinois state parks in areas of outstanding natural attractions by many years. Lowell Park is the only public place in the Dixon area that preserves remnants of the Boles Trail established in 1826 from Peoria, Illinois, to Galena, Illinois. The trail was replaced in popularity by the famous Kellogg Trail established in 1825 east of the Boles Trail route. See – https://historyillinois.org/boles-trail-the/ – retrieved March 3, 2025.
Lowell Park, Dixon’s first recreational park, was gifted in 1906 by Carlotta Lowell who was the niece of James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), a famous Boston (Cambridge) poet. The family came west on the invitation of Alexander Charters, a wealthy New York businessman, who purchased a large, wooded estate overlooking the river north of Dixon in 1837 and named it Hazelwood. His home later became the estate of Mr. & Mrs. Charles R. Walgreen, founder of the drug store chain that bears that name. Charles Lowell. a guest at Hazelwood, purchased the adjacent tract of land to live. Lowell married Josephine Shaw, also originally of Boston, and then of Staten Island in New York. When the Civil War broke out, Charles enlisted and was promoted to the rank of colonel and was killed in 1864 at the Battle of Cedar Creek in northern Virginia. Carlotta never knew her father as she was born after his death and the family never lived on their land in Dixon. In 1874, they moved to New York City and stayed there the rest of their lives. After her mother died, Carlotta offered the property in 1906 to the City of Dixon for a park in memory of her parents.
40th U.S. president Ronald Reagan visiting the Rock River in Lowell Park where he was an effective and beloved lifeguard for seven consecutive summers. In July 1921 a longer dock had been installed at the beach, extending 75 feet into the river with a springboard platform. The new bathhouse was built in 1922 that accommodated hundreds of bathers. Electricity was installed at the park in 1922 with lighting that allowed the beach to remain open until after dark. Over those summers, Reagan saved 77 swimmers from drowning. Obviously proud of his achievement, President Reagan often showed his Oval Office visitors a picture of the Rock River while telling them that his lifeguarding there was “one of the best jobs I ever had.”
Reagan at Lowell Park 1927. Ronald Reagan as lifeguard getting into a canoe in Lowell Park, 1927. Public Domain. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/photo/ronald-reagan-lifeguard-getting-canoe-lowell-park-1927-32 – retrieved March 4, 2025.
The original 200 acres of Lowell Park opened to the public in 1907. The park was designed by the Olmsted Brothers, a nationally prominent architecture firm headed by the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted. Lowell Park was designed in the American Romantic style which is characterized by its emphasis on natural scenery, native plant materials, native building materials, curvilinear roads, and minimum formality. In 1959 the beach was finally closed after ten years of declining usage due to the opening of Memorial Pool in Vaile Park in the city of Dixon. The Lowell Park bathhouse was used for storage as its concession stand continued to operate until the late 1980s.
Rock River at Lowell Park is still the hub for recreational activities as it has been for over a century.
President Reagan on his lifeguard years in Dixon: “One of the Best Jobs I Ever Had.”
Ronald Reagan as a lifeguard at Lowell Park in 1927. Public Domain.
Bus service from Dixon city to the park started in 1921. This diving top was anchored to the river bottom during its swimming hole glory days when Reagan was lifeguard. Swimmers teetered, spun and jumped into the water during hot Illinois summers which Reagan knew and loved. The one-story bathhouse behind it was designed and built in 1922. When Reagan was a lifeguard the building served as the concession stand and the check area for clothing baskets. Under a hipped roof, the men’s wing was to the south and women’s wing out of sight to the west. The architect of the bathhouse is unknown. Native stone was used from the ground to the height of the concession building’s serving counters and for the foundations of the two wings. Above that the walls were stucco on the exterior. All stonework was coursed and roughly squared. It was ventilated by raising the hinged board covers of the screened window openings. The steel-supported roof was covered originally with black-blue slate shingles that were replaced in 1934 with asphalt shingles. The overhang is broad with exposed rafters.
June 2017. Lowell Park, Dixon, Illinois. 3.53mb DSC_0877
Ronald Reagan in Dixon, Illinois, in the early 1920’s. Public Domain.
The Reagans settled in this rented house at 816 S. Hennepin Avenue in Dixon, Illinois, on December 6, 1920. The family of father Jack, mother Nelle, and 12-year-old Neil and 9-year-old Ronald lived here for three years. From 1921 to 1924, Neil and Ron attended South Side/Central School which still stands four blocks north of the house and is now the Dixon Historic Center. Reagan often walked along Hennepin Avenue going downtown to the Dixon Public Library at 221 South Hennepin Avenue and the First Christian Church at 123 South Hennepin Avenue where both Neil and Ron were baptized on June 1, 1922. Nelle taught Sunday school and sang in the church’s choir. Ronald and his mother were members of the Disciples of Christ church until 1937. Between 1924 and 1930, the Reagans lived in a rented house at 338 W. Everett Street in Dixon. Reagan lived in that house in Dixon when he was home from college after he began attending Eureka College in September 1928.
Reagan 1920s with family. Ronald Reagan sitting (hand on chin in front row) posing with other family members, Neil Reagan at far right (front row), Jack Reagan (middle row at left), Nelle Reagan (last row, second from left), Illinois. Public Domain.
Ronald Reagan sitting (hand on chin in front row) with other golf caddies for the Lincoln Highway Ladies Golf Tournament in 1922 in DeKalb, Illinois. Public Domain.
Reagan (second row, left) in 4th grade in Tampico, Illinois. Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, on February 6, 1911 in a second-floor apartment at 111 Main Street and, until 1914, at 104 W. Glassburn Street. Afterwards the family moved in sequence to Chicago, Galesburg, and Monmouth until they returned to Tampico in 1919-1920 and ultimately to Dixon in early December 1920. Reagan’s father was an alcoholic and they moved around a lot. As a young man Reagan became a lifesaver. Public Domain.
Brothers Neil and Ron Reagan attended South Side/Central School in DIxon, Illinois. The school building still stands at 205 W. 5th Street, four blocks north of the Boyhood Home. It is now the Dixon Historic Center.“Dixon Illinois ~ The Dixon Historic Center ~ Exhibits devoted to President Ronald Regan” by Onasill ~ Bill is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
June 2017. Inside the Reagan Boyhood Home, Dixon, Illinois. 4.90mb DSC_0778 (1)
The M60 tank is designed as one of the main assault vehicles of an Armor/Mechanized Infantry/ Infantry Division. It weighs about 105,000 pounds unloaded and has a 64,000 pound payload. The tank can travel at top speeds of 30 m.p.h. and can travel nearly 300 miles.
Republic F-105D Thunderchief (serial #60-455) was a new aircraft that served the U.S. Air Force from 1958 to 1984. This specific aircraft fought in Vietnam between 1968 and 1970. It was stationed at Takhli Airforce Base in Thailand with the 355 Tactical Fighter Wing that was established in April 1962 at George AFB in California and transferred to Thailand in 1965. This F-105D Thunderbird was one of 833 airplanes manufactured by Republic in Farmingdale, New York, with over half the fleet lost in combat or due to mechanical failures. With 610 built, this particular warbird was the definitive production model with all-weather capability because of advanced avionics, including AN/APN-131 navigational (Doppler) radar. This aircraft was retired with almost 6000 flying hours and two men who had flown it receiving the Medal of Honor. The plane’s maximum range is 2390 miles at a maximum ceiling of 48,500 feet and reached speeds of supersonic Mach 2 (1,534 m.p.h.) at over 36,000 feet. In addition to a Vulcan Gatling Gun the plane’s payload includes 750-pound conventional bombs (16 of them) or one nuclear bomb.
Capt. A. Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S., looking onto the Rock River in Dixon, Illinois, This 1930 statue by Leonard Crunelle (1872-1944) Reagan would have seen and known while living in Dixon. Young Lincoln enlisted in the Illinois Volunteers on April 21, 1832 and, following more enlistments, finally mustered out of military service on July 10, 1832. Across the Rock River is the modern Reagan statue.
Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) lived in Dixon, Illinois from 1920 to 1933. Reagan always referred to Dixon as his “hometown.” Reagan made several visits to Dixon after he lived here, even when he was President of the United States. The statue is on the banks of the Rock River which is the same waterway where Reagan saved 77 lives as a lifeguard upstream at Lowell Park.
After Reagan’s death in 2004 local donors commissioned this larger-than-life-sized statue of Dutch Reagan on a palomino horse and gifted it to the City of Dixon. It was dedicated to the eradication of Alzheimer’s that was a foe that President Reagan had to battle in last years.
Reagan in DIxon in the early 1920’s. Public Domain.
In 1982, President Reagan told the Eureka College audience, “Everything that has been good in my life began here.”
On campus at Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois, about 90 miles south of Dixon, where Reagan lived. The college, affiliated with the Disciples of Christ of which Ronald Reagan was a member, was founded in 1855. At the time of its founding Eureka was one of a handful of U.S. colleges that was co-ed. In 1856 Abraham Lincoln spoke on campus. After he graduated Reagan returned for campus visits at least a dozen times and served on its board of trustees. Reagan attended Eureka College from 1928 to June 10, 1932, when he graduated as the elected student body president with a degree in economics/sociology. Eureka College is the smallest college or university in American history to graduate a future U.S. president with a bachelor’s degree. The school is in Woodford County in Illinois.
On May 9, 1982, President Reagan announced the START treaty proposal in the Reagan Gym at Eureka’s commencement exercises. It resulted in a bilateral treaty signed in 1991 between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. on the reduction and the limitation of strategic offensive arms including nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles and heavy bombers.
Ronald Reagan is the only U.S. president who was born, grew up and received his education in the state of Illinois.
Of Dixon the Gipper once said: “It was the place I really found myself.”
Portrait of Ronald Reagan in 1934 the year after he left Dixon, Illinois. His career led to Hollywood, California as a film actor and Screen Actors Guild president; to Sacramento, California as 33rd Governor of California (1967-1975); and to Washington, D.C., as 40th President of the United States of America (1981-1989). But it was to Dixon, Illinois, that Reagan always returned with its fond memories. Reagan graduated from Eureka College, a liberal arts school affiliated with the Disciples of Christ, in 1932 where he was active in sports and drama and elected student body president. Reagan’s first job was as a sports radio broadcaster in Davenport, Iowa, for Big Ten football games. Afterwards he was a sports announcer for Chicago Cubs’ baseball games on WHO-AM in Des Moines. Reagan arrived in Hollywood in 1937 and was cast in his first feature film Love is on the Air for Warner Bros. where he gets to play a newscaster. Fair use.
In Love is on the Air (1937) Ronald Reagan made his screen debut as a crusading radio reporter who takes on civic corruption.
This explanatory article may be periodically updated.
SOURCES-
https://web.archive.org/web/20171014084448/http://gis.hpa.state.il.us/pdfs/223426.pdf – retrieved March 3, 2025.
https://www.dixongov.com/content/dixon-community/reagan-s-roots-run-deep-in-the-dixon/ – retrieved March 4, 2025.
https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/audiovisual/white-house-photo-collection-galleries/early-ronald-reagan-and-family – retrieved March 4, 2025.
https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/reagans/ronald-reagan/residences-ronald-w-reagan – retrieved March 4, 2025.
https://www.wifr.com/2024/08/23/what-is-ronald-reagans-connection-dixon/ – retrieved March 4, 2025.
Reagan giving a speech in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ on September 1, 1980. On a personal note, I met Ronald Reagan at the Palmer House in Chicago in June 1980 during a press conference. He was gracious and had movie star looks: tall and handsome. Reagan was elected the 40th U.S. president in a landslide over Jimmy Carter in November 1980 and re-elected in 1984. I later met Jimmy Carter in Chicago at a book signing in the 1990’s.
Author and wife at Reagan Boyhood Home, Dixon, Illinois.
The Ronald Reagan Trail (IL-26) is a route in Illinois that follows sites of interest associated with the 40th president of the United States who was born in Tampico, Illinois and grew up in Dixon, Illinois. Route 26 originally ran north-to-south for about 25 miles from Freeport, Illinois to Polo, Illinois. In 1937, IL-26 was extended about 15 miles north to the Illinois-Wisconsin state line and about 15 miles south to Dixon, Illinois. In 1969, IL-26 was extended almost 100 miles south from Dixon to East Peoria, Illinois.
