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is the county seat of Warren County in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is the home of Monmouth College and contains Monmouth Park, Harmon Park, North Park, Warfield Park, West Park, South Park, Garwood Park, Buster White Park and the Citizens Lake & Campground. It is the host of the Prime Beef festival , held annually the week after Labor Day. The festival is kicked off with one of the largest parades in Western Illinois. Monmouth is also known regionally as the "Maple City". It is part of the Galesburg Micropolitan Statistical Area.
The town was originally going to be called Kosciusko (the name was drawn out of a hat), but the founders of the town feared that it would be difficult to spell and pronounce.
Gunfighter Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth. For many years, the town watertower boasted that Monmouth was the "Home of Wyatt Earp." This was erased after it was discovered that Earp was actually a criminal instead of a hero. Controversial Civil War general Eleazar A. Paine practiced law there for many years. Abner C. Harding, Civil War General and Republican Congressman, lived in Monmouth and is buried in Monmouth Cemetery.. Mass murderer Richard Speck lived in Monmouth briefly as a child, and again in the spring of 1966. Ronald Reagan lived in Monmouth for a while as a child when his dad worked as a shoe salesman at the Colwell Department Store.
Monmouth College, a private liberal arts college affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), was founded in Monmouth in 1853. It is the second-largest employer in the city. Pi Beta Phi, the first national secret college society of women to be modeled after the Greek-letter fraternities of men, was founded on its campus in 1867. Just three years later in 1870, Kappa Kappa Gamma, international fraternity for women, was founded on its campus.
Monmouth was once home to one of the most unusually named high school sports organizations, the Zippers. Originally known as The Maroons, the Zipper nickname came about in the late 1930s when the school had a fast basketball team that would "Zip" up and down the court. Earl Bennett, a sports writer nicknamed them "The Zippers" and the name stuck. The school went with the "Zipper" nickname until the 2004-05 school year when Monmouth consolidated with Roseville and the new Monmouth-Roseville High School adopted the nickname "The Titans".
Monmouth was the home for Western Stoneware, known for its "Maple Leaf" imprint and for producing "Sleepy Eye" collectible ceramics, which are recognizable by the blue-on-white bas-relief Indian profile. Western Stoneware closed in June 2006. Three former employees of Western Stoneware now operate the facility under the name WS, Inc and have leased the building and logo from the city of Monmouth.