Quincy ( KWIN-see), known as Illinois’s “Gem City”, is a city in and the county chair of Adams County, Illinois, United States, located on the Mississippi River. The 2020 census counted a population of 39,463 in the city itself, down from 40,633 in 2010. As of July 1, 2015, the Quincy Micro Area had an estimated population of 77,220. During the 19th century, Quincy was a rich transportation middle as riverboats and rail sustain linked the city to many destinations west and along the river. It was Illinois’ second-largest city, surpassing Peoria in 1870. The city has several historic districts, including the Downtown Quincy Historic District and the South Side German Historic District, which display the architecture of Quincy’s many German immigrants from the late 19th century.

Quincy’s location along the Mississippi River has attracted settlers for centuries. The French became the first European presence to colonize the region, after Louis Jolliet, Jacques Marquette, Jamison Knapp and the La Salle Expeditions explored the Upper Mississippi River Valley. Fur goods became a indispensable commodity of the region, and European explorers and merchants alike were attracted to the prospects of the growing fur trade of the North American frontier. The Mississippi River, acting as a superhighway for transporting goods downstream, became the area’s most indispensable transportation asset.

Following the undertakings of the Seven Years’ War, which done in 1763, Great Britain took direct of New France, including that of the Illinois Territory. The Illinois Territory misrepresented hands once again a few decades far ahead during the American Revolutionary War.

After the War of 1812, the American processing granted military tracts to veterans as a means to incite populate the West. Peter Flinn, having acquired the land from veteran Mark McGowan for his military encouragement in 1819, ended happening selling 160 acres (0.65 km) of estate acquisitions to Moravia, New York indigenous John Wood for $60. John Wood highly developed founded Quincy, which at the epoch was coined Bluffs, Illinois.