Editing Havana, Illinois (section)

==History==
Havana was a major ancient American settlement two thousand years ago, when the largest verified mound of the Western [[Hopewell Culture]] was built. Local landmarks were mentioned in the journals of French explorers in the late 1600s. A religious medal dating from the early 1700s suggests that there was missionary activity in what is now Havana. When permanent English-speaking residents arrived in 1822, there was a [[Potawatomi]] village on the site. A ferry was established to the western bank of the [[Illinois River]] to a road that followed the [[Spoon River]]. There were [[War of 1812]] bounty lands in western Illinois.

[[Abraham Lincoln]] was a frequent visitor to Havana between his days as a soldier in the [[Black Hawk War]]s until at least his three-hour speech on the Rockwell Mound while he was running for the [[US Senate]] in 1858. [[Stephen Douglas]] had spoken there the day before. When he was younger, Lincoln rode a mail route from [[Lincoln's New Salem|New Salem]] to Havana. Later, he was a local surveyor, and then an itinerant attorney. Mason County was the only place where Lincoln owned farmland. The English-speaking settlement was originally called "Ross's Ferry" and was later named after [[Havana]], the capital of [[Cuba]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ | title=The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States | publisher=Govt. Print. Off. | author=Gannett, Henry | year=1905 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9V1IAAAAMAAJ/page/n151 152]}}</ref> Havana was notorious as a gambling river town, and it is reported that names such as [[Al Capone]] would hunt, fish, and gamble in the local clubs.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}