#SmallTownSaturday – Bishop Hill, IL

Jansonist Colony, Steeple Building, Main and Bishop Hill Streets, Bishop Hill, Henry County, IL

The story of this Western Illinois village begins across the ocean in Sweden. There, in the early nineteenth century, a Landberga farmer and flour salesman named Erik Jansson claimed to have experienced two extraordinary events. The first came when Jansson – a sufferer of rheumatism for much of his life – was plowing a field in 1830 and collapsed. Lying on the ground, he began to pray and was miraculously cured. The second event occurred during a visit to the market where Jansson, in his own words, heard the voice of Christ instructing him to “take up my cross and preach my gospel to all who will listen.”… Read More

#SmallTownSaturday – Centralia, IL

A share certificate for the Illinois Central Railroad, dated 1899

*Originally posted on November 4, 2017*

This week for #SmallTownSaturday, we’re visiting Centralia, IL (pop. 13,000)!

With an abundance of deer, bears, and elk, the region is thought to have been the hunting territory of the indigenous Tamaroa people prior to white settlement. It wasn’t until 1816 that settlers began to make their homes in the area.

Centralians were focused on agriculture in the early 19th century. Farmers suffered from a persistent problem: a lack of transportation of goods to market that petrified the Central Illinois economy. Advocating the construction of a new railway, Stephen Douglas secured a grant of 2.5 million acres of Federal land from Congress and Pres.Read More

#SmallTownSaturday – Riverside, IL

Avery Coonley House in Riverside, Illinois

*Originally posted on October 21, 2017*

Today we’ll visit Riverside, IL (pop. 8,875) for #SmallTownSaturday!

Portages, streams, free-flowing springs, wooded river banks, and vast prairie provided a few types of game to several Native American tribes in Riverside until their forced removal. The Potawatomi were the principal residents, but the Ottawa and Chippewas also lived in the region. Located just west of Chicago’s Ft. Dearborn though, white settlers began to lay their claim to the land as early as 1836.

Riverside was largely undeveloped in the early to mid-19th century. Farms belonging to the Forbes, Egan, and Gage families existed, but little else.

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#SmallTownSaturday – Bement, IL

Bement Cottage, where Lincoln and Douglas met

*Originally posted on October 7, 2017*

This week we’re travelling to Bement, Illinois (population 1,696) in Piatt County for #SmallTownSaturday!

Founded in 1854 and incorporated as a town in 1860, Bement is currently the only town in the United States with this name! The town was named after a secretary of the Great Western Railroad who promised to donate a bell to the first church in the town.

In the winter of 1853, businessman Joseph Bodman traveled from Massachusetts with L. B. Wing and Henry P. Little to the prairies of Illinois, where they had heard the Great Western Railroad was to be constructed.
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