Beloit

Beloit is a city in Rock County in southern Wisconsin, United States, located along the Rock River on the state border with Illinois. The 2020 census counted 36,657 residents, and the Janesville-Beloit metropolitan statistical area, which consists of Rock County alone, has an estimated 165,000 residents. The settlement began in the 1830s, when twelve men from Colebrook, New Hampshire, formed the New England Emigrating Company in October 1836 and sent Horace White to find a place to settle in Wisconsin. The level fields, the water power of Turtle Creek and the plentiful gravel fixed the site, and the village was platted in 1838 on a New England model with wide streets. It was first named New Albany in 1837 and was renamed Beloit in 1838, a name coined to recall Detroit. The city was served by the Milwaukee Road and the Chicago and North Western railroads and still has a Fairbanks-Morse engine manufacturing facility.