Janesville

City and administrative headquarters of Rock County, south Wisconsin, USA, on the Rock River, about 100 km/62 mi southwest of Milwaukee; population (2000) 59,500. Situated in an agricultural area where wheat, barley and tobacco are grown and dairy farming takes place, Janesville is a processing and marketing centre for the area's agricultural products. The city also has a wide range of manufactured products, including cars and car parts, trucks, building materials, pens, pencils, textiles, and electronic equipment.

Janesville was settled in 1835 and incorporated in 1853. Tallman House, once a station for the Underground Railroad (a network for escaped slaves), and visited by Abraham Lincoln (1859), is preserved as the Lincoln Tallman Museum.