Illinois street names

[Page Stephens]

I grew up in Centralia, Illinois and accepted as given the street names in the downtown area which were basically 1 through 7 with exception of Broadway which was 1. The cross streets on both sides of The Illinois Central tracks were named after trees as were a few others which in addition were named after trees.

I did not know until a few years ago when a friend of mine discovered the fact in a history book that this was no accident.

Centralia, along with a number of cities along the IC line is a generic town.

What happened was that an official of the Illinois Central as I recall Neil by name had inside information about the route the IC would take and bought up property along the places where the IC as a land grant railroad would pass. He and his friends then bought land at places where the IC would have to lay tracks and platted out generic towns.

The things all of these towns had in common were the both that their streets were parallel to the IC tracks and had identical street names.

The street names were on the east side, Oak, Locust, and Poplar. On the west side they were Chestnut, Walnut and Hickory. The cross streets were first, second through seventh.

All too many years ago my wife and I drove to Chicago to see a feiend and intentionally drove along the IC line until we got there in order to check out the street names of the various railroad stops along the line. We discovered as I recall 13 and took pictures of me standing next to the corner on which my father's law office was in Centralia, Illinois, i.e. 1st (later changed to Broadway in Centralia) and Locust.

We did not travel south from Centralia along the IC line nor did we travel along one of the original IC lines which led not to Chicago but to Dunleith on the western border of Illinois so I suspect there are many more.

One of the more interesting things about these towns is that they were not platted out in terms of the dictates of the Northwestern survey but by the route which the IC RR would take. As a result as a friend of mine who was for several years mayor of Champaign, Illinois told me once they became a major pain in the butt to later town planners who had to change the orientation of the streets in order to accomodate the township plans in order to orient them north and south.

This explains the reason that as the towns developed quite often they chose to go along with the northeast ordinance and abandon the original town plans most notoriously in Champaign, Illinois where very few of the original street mames remain in the downtown area. In addition it also explains the reason that Champaign even exists since Urbana which is today contiguous to Champaign might have been a more appropriate stop on the IC. It wasn't when the IC was buying up property for a train stop and as a result there today are two towns rather than one.

Page Stephens