[3] Gale in 1836 released a "Circular and Plan" for the founding of a manual labor colleges which described a subscriber- and land purchase-based method of funding.

[3] The first President was Hiram Huntington Kellogg Sr., who went on a book-buying trip to England; the books he acquired form the Knox Manual Labor College Collection.

[5] Like Gale, many of the founders of Knox College and residents of Galesburg were abolitionists and actively supported the Underground Railroad.

Two years after the debates, during his presidential campaign, Lincoln was awarded Knox College's first honorary doctorate—a Doctor of Laws degree, announced at the commencement exercises of 5 July 1860.

In 1867, the Knox College president William Curtis assaulted the Principal of the Female Seminary, Ada Howard.

[14] With the implementation of Renewed Knox, the 2003 curriculum overhaul, the school expanded its academic offerings to meet the needs of a 21st-century liberal arts education.

[22] The three most popular majors at Knox, based on 2021 graduates, were Business Administration and Management (28), Psychology (28), and Creative Writing (23).

The center deals with issues relating to Lincoln's life and legacy by fostering new research, publishing monographs, hosting annual lectures and occasional symposia.

[28] According to the U.S. Department of Education, the median federal debt of Knox College graduates who received student loans was $27,000.

[citation needed] Pumphandle is an annual tradition dating back to 1885 during which new members of the community are welcomed to Knox.

On the afternoon before the start of the academic year, all members of the Knox community gather on the south lawn outside Old Main.

[32] The Knox College mascot is the Prairie Fire, a name it adopted in 1993 due to sensitivity about its previous nickname, the Old Siwash.

This was a derogatory term used by European traders to refer to the indigenous people, with the French explorers experiencing Native American warfare tactics as barbaric and savage.

The term was widely used to denote small midwestern liberal arts colleges because of the popularity of Fitch's writings.

In 1992 a college publication urged the school to reconsider the name given its additional previously unknown pejorative implications.

First conducted in the 1950s by Knox professor Paul Shepard, the burn protects prairie grasses from intrusions of woodland scrub and competition with "exotic" species.

These invasive species have been introduced to Illinois from other regions or countries to the detriment of organisms that have evolved over millions of years in delicate balance with the environment and each other.

21st century athletic highlights would certainly include a string of conference championships for the men's and women's soccer teams from 2014 through 2021 with the Men's Soccer team producing All-American Forward Adetayo Adefioye and All region selections Nathaniel Logie, Charles Edemba and Raleigh Berry.

The Bronze Turkey trophy, awarded annually to the victor of their game, was created in 1928 and is the brainchild of Knox football alumnus Bill Collins.

[27] It has electron microscopes, a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer, a 17-inch (0.43 m) Corrected Dall-Kirkham reflector telescope manufactured by Planewave Instruments, a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometer, access to the Inter University Consortium for Political & Social Research, the Strong Collection of 18th- and 19th-century maps and photographs, the Hughes Collection of manuscripts and first editions from Hemingway and his "Lost Generation" contemporaries, and a 700-acre (2.8 km2) natural prairie reserve, the Green Oaks Field Station.

[42] The atrium of the Umbeck Science-Mathematics Center houses one of the few complete Fin whale skeletons on display in North America.

[49] African Americans make up 13.4% of the U.S. population in general, about 8% of surrounding area,[50] and they are 6% of the Knox College student body.