I had not heard of the small town of Grand Detour Illinois until about a week ago.

No offense to any of the fine 429 citizens of the small town along Route 2 and the Rock River, I just never make it out west of Rockford very often.

I can list off Batavia, Elgin, St. Charles, and most other Fox Valley towns but that's because that is where we went when I was little. That's where my dad's family was from. The only time we headed west out of Rockford was if we had to go play some sport in Freeport.

Freeport was always a worse trip than Belvidere but I cursed them both for being in the NIC-10.

This is a long way for me to excuse myself for not being familiar with Grand Detour. I'm sure it's nice, maybe it's not, I'm not sure. What I do know is that I just heard of it recently and said the name of the town on the radio.

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This prompted an email from a listener to Riley about how I pronounced the city. For the record, I said it like it's written. Just Grand and Detour. I guess you could say that I placed the accent on the "de" in detour.

Apparently this isn't standard practice by locals. Riley, an Oregon native so he knows what he's talking about, says that a bunch of people place the accent on the "tour" in Grand Detour and might go as for as moving the "de" in detour to the end of Grand to sound like "Grandy Tour."

NOTE: This isn't the first time I've come across a local small town that's divided on pronunciation. If this story interests you, you should check out the post on the city of Racine.

So I went to YouTube to figure this out. You don't get much if you just search "Grand Detour." You'll get a kid that has a typical 9-year-old account. Not much there. An automated "best restaurant" video. And there about 7 videos down is one about John Deere settling in the area.

That's where we get this very professional looking guy say it this way.

It almost sounds French. Like Gran De'tour.

It's not French though. according to the Wikipedia page. It was named for the "odd turn in the Rock River."

Either way, I'm siding with this guy, it looks like he did the research AND might actually be able to perform actual blacksmith duties. Seriously watch that whole video it is pretty good.

How Many of These Undesirable Nicknames for Illinois Towns Have You Heard?

It seems every town or city in Illinois has a different name. It's the derogatory name that locals use and noobs will soon understand. Some are pretty dirty.

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