Famous People

Fulton County is home to several notable individuals. Lewistown was the boyhood home of the poet Edgar Lee Masters who made Fulton County world-famous with the writing of Spoon River Anthology in 1915. Born near Canton, the inventor Charles Duryea, and his brother James Frank Duryea built the first working gasoline-powered American automobile in 1861. More recently, Canton native Steve R. Nagel became an astronaut, flying four space shuttle missions on Discovery, Challenger, Atlantis, and Columbia between 1985 and 1993, loggings 732 hours in space. Other Fulton County notables are Smiley Burnett, a native of Summum, who appeared in numerous Western Movies; Elizabeth Magie, inventor of the Landlord’s game, precursor to Monopoly; Louisa McCall, organizer of the First National Bank of Canton, said to be the first woman bank director in the United States; and Harriet Vittum, a heralded social reformer in Chicago.