Village Voices - We don't write papers, we build scrapbooks

Mark your calendars for July 7, 8 and 9th as Tutty Baker Fest returns to Freeport for the first time in over 20 years.

Tutty Baker was an American pioneer who was born in 1793, and is credited with the founding of Freeport. When the town was first incorporated, it was called Winneshiek, and Tutty – as he was called by the Winnebago tribe of Indians due to his stutter – operated a trading post on the banks of the Pecatonica where he began operating a free ferry across the river. According to one story, Freeport earned its name after Baker's wife, Elizabeth Phoebe Baker, referred...