Midway between Galena and Rockford, the oddly named town of Freeport (pop. 26,443) is neither a port nor even near any body of water. According to the WPA Guide to Illinois, the name was bestowed by the wife of an early settler to satirize his fondness for providing free room and board to passersby.
There’s no free lunch here today, but Freeport does offer at least one good reason to stop: the Alber Ice Cream Parlour, at 126 E. Douglas Street two blocks north of the US-20 Business Loop. Enjoy a creamy, cool milk shake or sundae, then step next door to the small park, where an oddly distorted statue marks the site of the second Lincoln-Douglas debate, held here on August 27, 1858. A plaque quotes both men equally, with Lincoln’s “This government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free” opposing Douglas saying, “I am not for the dissolution of the Union under any circumstance.”
