Monmouth is a city in and the county seat of Warren County, Illinois, United States. The population was 8,902 at the 2020 census, down from 9,444 in 2010. 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 like one of the largest parades in Western Illinois. Monmouth is then known regionally as the “Maple City”. It is portion of the Galesburg Micropolitan Statistical Area.

The town received in 1831 was originally going to be called Kosciusko (the broadcast was drawn out of a hat), but the founders of the town feared that it would be difficult to spell and pronounce. The name ‘Monmouth’ was put lecture to by a resident who had lived in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

In 1841, Latter Day Saint goings-on founder Joseph Smith appeared previously Judge Stephen A. Douglas in an extradition hearing held at Monmouth’s Warren County courthouse. The hearing, which was to determine whether Smith should be returned to Missouri to point of view murder charges, resulted in release for the defendant, as it was determined that his arrest had been invalid. Attorney Orville Browning, who would bow to Douglas’s Senate chair following his death, represented Smith.

Gunfighter Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth. For many years, the town watertower boasted that Monmouth was the “Home of Wyatt Earp.” Controversial Civil War general Eleazer A. Paine practiced put-on there for many years. Abner C. Harding, Civil War General and Republican Congressman, lived in Monmouth and is buried in Monmouth Cemetery. Ronald Reagan lived in Monmouth for a though as a child in the space of his father worked as a shoe salesman at the Colwell Department Store and increase murderer Richard Speck lived in Monmouth briefly as a child, and once again in the spring of 1966.