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West Point Township, Illinois

township of Illinois

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ987728 ↗
Source-derived summary

West Point Township is located in Stephenson County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,369 and it contained 1,483 housing units. The village of Lena, the unincorporated community of Waddams Grove, and two former communities of Louisa and West Point were all located in this township.

Geography

West Point is Township 28 North, Range 5 (part) and 6 (part) East of the Fourth Principal Meridian.

According to the 2010 census, the township has a total area of 35.76 square miles (92.6 km2), of which 35.7 square miles (92 km2) (or 99.83%) is land and 0.07 square miles (0.18 km2) (or 0.2%) is water.

Stagecoach inns

The Buckhorn Inn, a log building, was built in 1838 in Alida, now Lena, along the Old State Road number 2, now called the Stagecoach Trail. It was a stop for the Frink, Walker & Company stage line that operated from Chicago to Galena 1839–1854. The building was demolished and replaced by Dodd's Inn in 1848.

Dodd's Inn was built by Samuel Dodds on the Buckhorn Inn site in 1848 as a stage inn for Frink, Walker & Company. From 1854 to 1857 the stone building was used as a post office.

Editorial summary

“West Point Township, Illinois” enters the record as township of Illinois. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what West, Point and Township can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2010, 1838, 1839, 1854—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around West, Point and Township.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“West Point Township, Illinois” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, West, Point and Township provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q987728. Authority coordinates are 42.417, -89.869. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010, 1838, 1839 and 1854.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “West Point Township, Illinois”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow West Point Township, Illinois primary sources, West Point Township, Illinois archive and West research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “West Point Township, Illinois”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “West Point Township, Illinois” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.