The city was founded in 1835 by Jesse W. Fell of Bloomington, Illinois, a land speculator and lawyer, and James Allen, a representative in the Illinois State Legislature. The two men were on their way from Decatur, Illinois back to Bloomington after a business trip and stopped to rest their horses on the open prairie halfway between the two cities. It occurred to them that this was an ideal location for a settlement, as there was nothing else nearby. They named the town in honor of DeWitt Clinton.
Clinton is on the 8th Judicial Circuit, on which Abraham Lincoln traveled, along with Judge David Davis, for twenty years. Lincoln acted as lawyer because lawyers were scarce in the area at the time.[citation needed]
One of the two registered historical locations in DeWitt County, the C.H. Moore House, is located in Clinton. The house was purchased and improved by lawyer Clifton H. Moore in the 1880s, and is now the DeWitt County Museum. Moore's private library of more than 7,000 volumes was left to the city upon his death in 1901. These books would make up the first collection of the Vespasian WarnerPublic Library, founded by and named for Moore's son-in-law.[citation needed]
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech in Clinton to which the following quotation has been attributed:
You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
on Sept. 18, according to Carl Sandburg. However, there is no official transcript of the speech. Lincoln's collected papers has a version of the speech taken from a contemporary copy in the Bloomington Pantagraph which doesn't contain it. It has also been attributed to a speech by Lincoln in Bloomington, IL two years earlier, and there is controversy over whether or not Lincoln ever said it at all.[citation needed]
As of the 2020 census, Clinton had a population of 7,004. The median age was 39.7 years. 23.0% of residents were under the age of 18 and 18.6% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 92.4 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 88.5 males age 18 and over.
99.6% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.4% lived in rural areas.
There were 3,074 households in Clinton, of which 28.2% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 38.1% were married-couple households, 20.9% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 32.5% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 36.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 15.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 3,384 housing units, of which 9.2% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.9% and the rental vacancy rate was 5.6%.
The median income for a household in the city was $46,741, and the median income for a family was $63,125. Males had a median income of $40,918 versus $26,554 for females. The per capita income for the city was $27,368. About 9.2% of families and 15.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 25.2% of those under age 18 and 6.4% of those age 65 or over.
Economy
The major employers in Clinton include the Clinton Nuclear Power Plant, Warner Hospital & Health Services and HNC Products Inc., and Liberty Village of Clinton.[citation needed]
Attractions
Recreation and entertainment
The annual Apple and Pork Festival draws ten times or more of the population to the city to visit, partake, and purchase items typifying the town.
Terror on Washington Street is an annual haunted house run by Clinton's Chamber of Commerce.
May Days is an annual festival that has carnival rides as well as live music and various other entertainment events.
There are seven small parks within the town which include facilities such as lighted tennis courts, basketball courts, baseball and softball fields, as well as other playground equipment.
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