La Harpe, IL

La Harpe is a Hancock County city with 1,175 residents in the 2020 census, south of the South Branch La Moine River. Illinois Route 9 runs through town as Main Street, leading east toward Bushnell and west toward Dallas City on the Mississippi. The city park district keeps a community clubhouse, swimming pool, lighted ball fields, and LaMoine Valley Golf Club in the local mix. A Carnegie library on Main Street, dedicated in 1906, adds one of the town’s oldest civic buildings.

ATTRNyttend / Public domain

La Harpe was named for the French explorer Bernard de la Harpe, whose party wintered near the present city in the eighteenth century; local history also records four French-inscribed stone tablets reportedly found east of an old fortification in 1896. The city charter dates to 1859, and the TP&W railroad reached town in 1867. A 1893 fire destroyed much of one Main Street block, but City Hall followed in 1894. Former La Harpe High School students now attend Illini West High School in Carthage after the 2007 school consolidation, while the library, park square, and route corridor keep older layers visible.