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100 unusual facts about Illinois


18th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment

The 18th Illinois Infantry was organized at Aurora, Illinois and mustered into Federal service on May 28, 1861 for a three year enlistment.

Acosada

However it was not until 1 June 1966 that the film premiered in the USA in Champaign, Illinois.

Adam's Ribs

Hawkeye and Trapper go down to try to negotiate them from a stubborn supply sergeant, who is willing to help once he finds out where they're from (as he lives in Joliet, a Chicago suburb, and is a huge fan of Adam's Ribs).

Alfred Babcock

In 1850, Babcock moved to Illinois and settled in Galesburg, Knox County, Illinois where he continued the practice of his profession until his death in 1871.

Andy Studebaker

Born September 16, 1985, Studebaker spent much of his childhood in Congerville, Illinois.

Ayers, Illinois

Ayers, Carroll County, Illinois, an unincorporated community in Carroll County, Illinois

Best Country Today

Beginning as one of the original Satellite Music Network formats over 20 years ago, its studios and offices were located in Mokena, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.

Brown County High School

Brown County High School, or BCHS, is a public four-year high school located at 500 East Main Street in Mount Sterling, Illinois, a small city in Brown County, Illinois, in the Midwestern United States.

Buda Engine Co.

Buda Engine was founded in 1881 by George Chalender in Buda, Illinois to make equipment for railways.

Buffalo Grove ambush

The Buffalo Grove ambush occurred near Buffalo Grove, Illinois, a small, unincorporated settlement in present-day Ogle County.

BYD Company

US operations are limited to sales and marketing and can be found in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, and San Francisco, California.

Calvin B. Hoover

Hoover was born in Berwick, Illinois to John Calvin Hoover and Margaret Delilah Roadcap Hoove.

Carpenter Park

Carpenter Park is a 322-acre (1.3 km²) park on the north bank of the Sangamon River on the far north side of the city of Springfield, Illinois.

Casey Claw

It was originally developed by Mark Casey in 1993, a former marching member and drum sergeant of the The Cavaliers of Rosemont, Illinois.

Cecil Bothwell

Bothwell was born 1950 in Oak Park, Illinois, lived in several states and held several jobs in the area of Asheville, North Carolina.

Central Street

Central Street (Evanston, IL), a major east-west road and shopping district in Evanston, Illinois

Chicago Garter Snake

It was described by Edward Drinker Cope in 1892, and can be found in the vicinity of rural waterways in northeastern Illinois, such as Piscasaw Creek in Boone County and McHenry County, Illinois.

Cy Touff

Cyril James Touff (March 4, 1927, Chicago – January 24, 2003, Evanston, Illinois) was a jazz bass trumpeter.

Dale Barnstable

Dale Barnstable (born 1925) is an American retired basketball player from Antioch, Illinois who was banned from the NBA for life in 1951 for point shaving.

Danville New Tech High

Danville New Tech High School is a school located in Danville, Illinois.

Domasi

The Shallow Well Project funded by the First Presbyterian Church of Urbana in Urbana, Illinois, United States is providing safe drinking water for the villages around Domasi.

E. Woolsey Peck

In 1867, he moved to Sycamore, Illinois then to Rockford, Illinois and then back to Tuscaloosa, Alabama.He was elected chairman of the Military Reconstruction Convention of 1867.

Edward Breathitte Sellers

Born and reared in slavery, somehow prior to his matriculating at Wheaton College, he moved to Illinois and listed Shawneetown, Illinois as his home.

Edward C. Bosbyshell

Bosbyshell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1822 and spent some of his early adult life in Calhoun County, Illinois, "where, in an overflow of the rivers, he lost his entire property."

Edward E. Wilson

Moving to Chicago, he filled the post of assistant state attorney for Cook County, Illinois, from 1912 until his retirement in 1947.

Ellyn

Glen Ellyn, Illinois, affluent village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States

For the Lonely Lest the Wiser

For the Lonely Lest the Wiser is the first EP but second release from Wauconda, Illinois rock outfit Dr Manhattan.

Francis Clay

Born and raised in Rock Island, Illinois, he started playing jazz, professionally at the age of 15, played drums behind many of the biggest names of 20th century popular American music.

Fred Holstein

Fred began playing around Chicago in the 1960s, first at places like the Old Town Pub and a bar in Morton Grove called Scot's Cellar.

Frederick J. Kapala

He was an assistant state's attorney of Winnebago County, Illinois from 1976 to 1977, and was in private practice in Rockford, Illinois from 1977 to 1982.

Furniture Style

The magazine was based in Lincolnshire, Illinois, at Vance Publishing's corporate headquarters; it was founded in October 1996.

George Corneal

From 1911 to 1914, Corneal was the basketball coach at Rock Island High School in Rock Island, Illinois.

George E. Coghill

Born in Beaucoup, Illinois, to John Waller and Elisabeth Tucker Coghill, George started college at Shurtleff College in Alton, Illinois.

Great Disappointment

In Loraine, Illinois, a mob attacked the Millerite congregation with clubs and knives, while a group in Toronto was tarred and feathered.

Gregory Perino

His fascination with the past and his innate ability to locate and meticulously excavate prehistoric cemeteries and burial mounds soon led him into a career as a self-taught professional archaeologist, first with the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma; then with the Foundation for Illinois Archeology in Kampsville, Illinois; and finally with the Museum of the Red River in Idabel, Oklahoma.

Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard

After he walked for 75 miles in a single night to warn the town of Danville of an impending raid by Indians, he earned the nickname "Pa-pa-ma-ta-be," or "Swift-Walker."

Harmonica gun

Commencing in 1834 in Quincy, Illinois, he began to make harmonica guns and more conventional revolving rifles.

Howie Crittenden

He was head basketball coach at Metropolis High School in Metropolis, Illinois and Calloway County High School in Murray, Kentucky.

Illinois Route 103

Route 103 begins at a junction with U.S. Route 24 in Woodstock Township in southern Schuyler County, northeast of Ripley.

Illinois Route 116

Illinois 116 was a popular agricultural and commercial truck route from Burlington, Iowa (on the Mississippi River) to Peoria, Illinois (on the Illinois River) during World War II and through the late 1960s.

Illinois Route 163

At Booker T. Washington Cemetery, the route heads northwest into Centreville Township, where it meets Illinois 157.

Illinois Route 179

From here, the highway ran west through farmland to Dana.

Illinois Route 4

Illinois Route 4 is a long state road that runs south from the Interstate 55 business loop around the state capital of Springfield, south to Illinois Route 13 just north of Murphysboro.

Illinois's 19th congressional district

The district became obsolete for 2013's 113th Congress, as population growth in Illinois was slower compared to other states.

J. Frank Duryea

On November 28, 1895, Frank Duryea won the first motor-car race in the United States, a 54-mile loop along the lakeshore from Chicago to Evanston and back again.

Joe Rutgens

Joseph Casimiere Rutgens (born January 26, 1939 in Cedar Point, Illinois) is a former American football defensive tackle in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins.

Johan Engholm

Several descendants of Johan Engholm emigrated to the US (mainly Illinois) in the beginning of the 20th century.

John Baricevic

Justice Baricevic presides over the Twentieth Judicial Circuit (Fifth Appellate District) in Illinois for the counties of Monroe, Perry, Randolph, St. Clair, and Washington.

John Richard Parker

John Parker was born in 1830 in Crawford County, Illinois the second oldest child of Silas Mercer Parker (1802–1836) and Lucy (Duty) Parker.

John Wilson Ruckman

Biographies, however, usually list his place of birth as Sidney, Illinois (Champaign County).

Jonathan Blitstein

Jonathan Blitstein (born 1982 Lincolnshire, Illinois) is an American playwright, and indie filmmaker.

Kate Booth

At her husband's wish, Katie and the children travelled with him to the cult leader John Alexander Dowie's Zion City, a township about 40 miles north of Chicago.

Kinderhook plates

The Kinderhook plates were a set of six small, bell-shaped pieces of brass with strange engravings which were claimed to have been discovered in 1843 in an Indian mound near Kinderhook, Illinois.

Kohl McCormick Early Childhood Teaching Awards

The awards have been restricted to teachers in Cook County in Illinois, but beginning in 2008, the honor will be extended to DuPage County as well.

Kumler

Kumler, Illinois, ghost town in West Township, McLean County, Illinois, USA

Lake Township, Illinois

Lake Township, Cook County, Illinois, also known as the Town of Lake, annexed to Chicago in 1889

Ledyard Tucker

Ledyard R Tucker (19 September 1910 Glenwood Springs, Colorado – 16 August 2004 Savoy, Illinois) was an American mathematician who specialized in statistics and psychometrics.

Lou Black

Born in Rock Island, Illinois, he began playing banjo during early childhood and became professional in 1917.

Madison Kocian

Kocian's senior career started in 2013, at the Secret U.S Classic, held at the Hoffman Estates, Illinois, where she placed 7th all-around but managed a silver on the bars, scoring 14.450.

Mary's River Covered Bridge

The bridge was built in 1854 as part of a plank toll road connecting Chester to Bremen; the bridge allowed agricultural products to be transported to Chester, a significant port on the Mississippi River.

Michael H. Wynn

While in high school he also worked as a gas station attendant, busboy, and lifeguard at a lake in Romeoville, Illinois.

Milam Township, Macon County, Illinois

In 2009, it was merged into Mount Zion Township.

Milam Township is a former township which was located in Macon County, Illinois.

Miles Henry Davis

In the late 1940s, Davis purchased a 160-acre estate in Millstadt, Illinois.

Newton Gang

Notable enough for the 1924 train robbery near Rondout, Illinois (the world's largest at the time), the brothers gained a second round of fame in retirement, when they participated in a 1975 documentary film, and then a more in-depth oral history project that eventually was published in book form, possibly one of the clearest records of a criminal career of the period, as told by the participants.

Ogden Avenue

ends when U.S. Route 34 leaves Aurora at the intersection of U.S. Route 34 and U.S. Route 30 on the border of Aurora; Montgomery, Illinois; and Oswego, Illinois.

Oscar Albuquerque

He is currently the president of Pro Soccer International, an ownership group which holds the rights to American Indoor Soccer League teams in Chicago and Rockford, Illinois.

Osco Drug

Also in 1968, Osco's headquarters relocated from Melrose Park, Illinois to Franklin Park, Illinois.

Penny Bernard Schaber

Schaber was raised in Mundelein, Illinois and remained in Illinois to complete her Associate and Bachelor’s of Science degree from Southern Illinois University.

Peoria, Illinois City Council election, 2003

In Peoria, Illinois, each elector casts five votes in the At-Large elections.

Peotone High School

Peotone High School or PHS, is a four-year high school located approximately 1 mile east of Interstate 57 near the intersection of Corning Ave and Rathje Rd in Peotone, Illinois, a village located 43 miles (69 km) south of Chicago, Illinois and 16 miles (25 km) north of Kankakee, Illinois, in the United States.

Peru, Nebraska

The first attempt to settle the community occurred in 1853 when some residents of Peru, Illinois.

Popcorn

At least six localities (all in the Midwestern United States) claim to be the "Popcorn Capital of the World": Ridgway, Illinois; Valparaiso, Indiana; Van Buren, Indiana; Schaller, Iowa; Marion, Ohio; and North Loup, Nebraska.

Prentice Marshall

In 1959, Marshall, then a resident of Wheaton, Illinois, ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for state's attorney in DuPage County, a Republican stronghold.

Ralf Henricksen

Murals were also commissioned to him as part of the Treasury Section of Fine Arts at the Stanton (IL) and Monroe (Michigan) Post Offices.

Reuben Ellwood

He attended public schools in New York before moving to DeKalb County, Illinois with his family when he was fifteen.

Ron Wells

Ron Wells, (born October 2, 1961, in Rantoul, Illinois) is a former American football player.

Rosemary Mulligan

In the fall of 2009 Mulligan announced her intention to run for Republican Committeeman of Maine Township Maine Township, Cook County, Illinois against incumbent Mark Thompson.

Roy Vernon Scott

Scott was born to Roy J. Scott and the former Edna Dodson in Wrights, an unincorporated community in Greene County in west-central Illinois.

Ryan Weemer

Ryan G. Weemer is a former Marine from Hindsboro, Illinois, who was tried in a military court for war crimes that were allegedly committed while he was on active duty during the Iraq War.

Schreder HP-15

In the April 2011 the sole HP-15 prototype, registered N5488, still existed and was privately registered in Peoria, Illinois.

SGSM Network

To reflect this expansion, South Grand Senior Ministry became SGSM Network in 2008, and the organization has expanded throughout the St. Louis Metro area to include Grand Center, Northeast County Deanery, South County, South Grand, and the Lindenwood area (now independent).

Sherman Barton

Sherman "Bucky" Barton (born February 2, 1875 in Normal, Illinois - July 11, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois) was an Outfielder in the Negro Leagues.

Shirley Allen

Shirley Allen, of Roby, Illinois, is a former nurse whose family's 1997 attempt to have her involuntarily committed led to a 39-day standoff (described by some as a "siege") with Illinois State Police and other law-enforcement agencies.

Shop 'n Save

Shop ’n Save was founded in 1979 as a grocery store in Belleville, Illinois, near St. Louis, Missouri.

Spray pool

The spray pool at Phillips Park in Aurora, Illinois dates from the 1930s and has closed and reopened several times.

Susan Headley

Born in Altona, Illinois in 1959, Headley claims to have dropped out of school in the eighth grade after a difficult childhood.

Teco pottery

Nearing the end of his life, William D. Gates constructed a residence just north of Crystal Lake, Illinois named "Trail's End" symbolizing his decreasing involvement in the company.

Titanine Ltd.

DeSoto Inc., of Des Plaines, Illinois, purchased a 50% interest in Dufay Titanine plc for £4m.

Trend Is Dead! Records

Records (stylized as tREND iS dEAD! records) is an independent record label based out of Normal, Illinois, United States.

Uncle Tupelo discography

The discography of Uncle Tupelo, an alternative country band from Belleville, Illinois, consists of four studio albums, two compilation albums, three demo tapes, and five singles.

Union Pacific North Line

The Union Pacific North Line (UP-N) is a Metra commuter rail line in the Chicago metropolitan area that runs between Chicago and Waukegan, Illinois, with some trains continuing to Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Union Pacific Northwest Line

The line runs from the Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago to endpoints in McHenry, Illinois and Harvard, Illinois, with the McHenry branch served only during weekday rush periods.

Wally Lemm

During the first season of play, the Oilers captured the league's first-ever title, but Lemm resigned after the season, returning to Libertyville, Illinois to work in the sporting goods industry.

Wauconda

Wauconda Township, Lake County, Illinois, a township in Lake County, Illinois, United States

Wauconda, Illinois, a village in Lake County, Illinois, United States

WBKM

WBKM-LP, a low-power television station (channel 46) licensed to Chana, Illinois, United States

William McKendree

In 1830, he lent his support to the Lebanon Seminary, Lebanon, Illinois.

WQAD-DT3

Over-the-air, the station airs a standard definition digital signal on UHF channel 38.3 (or virtual channel 8.3 via PSIP) from a transmitter in Orion, a village of Western Township, Illinois.

Yorkville High School

Yorkville High School, or YHS, is a public four-year high school located in Yorkville, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States.


1921 Iowa Hawkeyes football team

An Illinois team of the great Robert Zuppke was the opponent.

1992–93 Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball team

After sitting out a season, Andy Kaufmann returned for the 1992-93 campaign and helped lead Illinois to a 19-13 record and trip to the

Alexander Girard

Girard was commissioned to create a mural for the John Deere Company, in the entrance to their administration building designed by Saarinen near Moline, Illinois.

Bessemer Park

Bessemer Park is a public park in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. Created in 1904, it was named for Henry Bessemer, the inventor of the eponymous steelmaking process.

Cal Pritner

Students from the Illinois State University Department of Theatre, which Pritner served as founding department chair, include: a majority of the founding members of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble; Tony winners Judith Ivey and Rondi Reed; Oscar nominee John Malkovich; former Steppenwolf Theatre artistic directors Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Randy Arney; and film and television stars Gary Cole and Jane Lynch.

Candace Kroslak

Candace Kaye Kroslak (born Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, July 22, 1978) is an American actress of Slovak descent, probably best known for her role as Lindy Maddock in the Swedish-American soap opera Ocean Ave.

Chaim Kreiswirth

In 1947, he moved to the United States and from 1947 to 1953 served as Rosh Yeshiva at the Hebrew Theological College in Skokie, Illinois.

Charles E. Freeman

In September, 1973 governor Dan Walker named Freeman to the Illinois Commerce Commission, a rate regulatory agency with power over telephone, electricity and gas companies.

Classical 24

WNIU, broadcasting from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, is another full power FM that carries Classical 24 on a full-time basis.

Connecticut's 4th congressional district election, 2008

Shays grew up in Darien, Connecticut, attended Principia College in Elsah, Illinois, and received an MBA and MPA from New York University.

Cook County Courthouse

Richard J. Daley Center, the location of the Court of Cook County, Illinois

Craig Virgin

Additionally, Virgin remains the record-holder in Illinois Boys Cross Country, running a 13:50.6 in 1972, which has only been approached by within five seconds by Chris Derrick in 2007 (13:51.8) and Lukas Verzbicas in 2010 (13:53.8)

Eric Sedler

As a leading member of the Issue Department for the Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, Sedler worked with House leadership and state legislators to develop communications programs to advance the caucus agenda.

Fab Lab MSI

Fab Lab MSI (Fabrication Laboratory at the Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago), Illinois) - The Fab lab MSI is a small scale workshop that uses various machines to create both prototypes for individuals and small projects for museum members and visitors.

Frank Bonilla

Bonilla spent his first years of high school attending a Franciscan high school in Illinois, where he showed academic and leadership skills.

Girard incident

Specialist Third Class Girard, a 21-year-old enlisted man from Ottawa, Illinois, used a grenade launcher mounted on an M1 rifle to fire an empty casing at Sakai, which killed her.

Greens/Green Party USA

The Clearinghouse has operated from various locations, including (originally) Kansas City, Missouri; Blodgett Mills, New York; Lawrence, Massachusetts; and Chicago, Illinois.

Illinois Route 119

Illinois 119 begins at a junction with US 136 and Illinois 1 in rural South Ross Township east of Henning.

Illinois Route 150

SBI Route 150 originally ran from the U.S. 51/60/62 bridges south of Cairo north to Hamel (located northeast of Saint Louis, Missouri) on what is now Illinois Route 3, the portion of Illinois 150 from Chester to Steeleville, and Illinois Route 4.

Illinois State Fair

The Illinois State Fair was featured on the NBC-TV show The Great American Road Trip in July 2009.

James Harrod

A contemporary of better known explorers like Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, Benjamin Logan, and Simon Kenton, Harrod led many expeditions into the regions that now form Kentucky and Illinois.

Janet Lewis

Lewis was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she was a member of a literary circle that included Glenway Wescott, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, and her future husband Yvor Winters.

Jimtown, Illinois

Jimtown, Champaign County, Illinois, an unincorporated community in Champaign County, Illinois

Labor and Employment Relations Association

It originally consisted of about 100 researchers (economists; management, human resources, and labor relations researchers; attorneys, historians and sociologists) from 30 universities, including California-Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, Illinois, Massachusetts (several campuses), MIT, Michigan, Michigan State, Northeastern, Rutgers, Stanford and UCLA, as well as universities in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Lakeview College of Nursing

An affiliation with the Illinois Teacher's College in Charleston (now Eastern Illinois University) provided additional on-campus instruction.

Lybster

However, during the American Revolution, following some victories in the Ohio and Illinois territories, Patrick Sinclair felt it was necessary to move Fort Michilimackinac from its exposed location on the northernmost point of the lower peninsula of Michigan to Mackinac Island.

Mary Odilia Berger

The congregation, through SSM Health Care, today operates in Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.

May 26–31, 2013 tornado outbreak

The tornado continued causing damage in residential areas before crossing the Missouri River into St. Louis County and Earth City, Bridgeton, and the northern side of Maryland Heights as it moved along Interstate 70 near its intersection with Interstate 270.

Northfield, Illinois

This department is Accredited by CALEA, and was one of the first in the State of Illinois to become so accredited.

Pecatonica, Illinois

Pecatonica is the hometown of Hacks Auction, Northern Illinois premier auction house and J&J Tumbling and Trampoline which has produced several world class athletes, including 1988 Woman's Tumbling World Champion Megan Cunningham Gearhart (later a coach) and National Trampoline Team member Michael Devine.

Robert Kennicott

Kennicott was born in New Orleans and grew up in "West Northfield" (now Glenview), Illinois, a town in the prairie north of the then nascent city of Chicago.

Silver carp

By August 2009, they had become abundant in the Mississippi River watershed from Louisiana to South Dakota and Illinois, and had grown close to invading the Great Lakes via the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Sister Kinderhook

The album revolves around a fantastical theme that explores subject matter such as the New Netherland settlements, Colonial Federalism, feral children, the Anti-Rent Wars of 1844, Early American portraiture, and the prehistoric Mound Builder giants of Illinois and Ohio.

Spalding High School

Spalding Institute, later Academy of Our Lady-Spalding Institute, now consolidated as Peoria Notre Dame High School in Peoria, Illinois

Stanley Steemer

The company sponsors the NASCAR "30-lap Stanley Steemer NASCAR Late Model" race held at Rockford Speedway in Rockford, Illinois.

Steadfast Networks

Steadfast Networks is a Chicago, Illinois-based Internet Service Provider primarily focused on Shared Hosting, Dedicated Servers and Colocation.

Sylvester Millard House

Illinois Governor Shelby Moore Cullom appointed Millard a trustee of the Illinois Industrial University, where he served for twelve years including a six-year stint as President of the Board.

The Felix Culpa

For their second release, The Felix Culpa released THOUGHTCONTROL (2005, Common Cloud Records) - an EP/DVD combo that featured 4 new songs, a video for "A Murderer" (Commitment), a live set at the Knights of Columbus, Arlington Heights, IL, and roughly 2 hours of random tour footage.

Thorn Creek Nature Center and Preserve

Thorn Creek Woods Nature Center and Preserve is located in Will County, Illinois near the municipality of Park Forest, Illinois.

Transportation in Greater St. Louis

At Missouri Route 367, US 67 turns north, crosses the Missouri River on the Clark Bridge into Illinois, through Madison and Jersey counties, then leaving the region.

Treaty of Prairie du Chien

By this treaty, the tribes ceded to the United States an area in present-day northwestern Illinois and southwestern Wisconsin, as well as the areas currently occupied by the cities of Wilmette and Evanston.

Tri-state area

Three other prominent areas that have been labeled tri-state areas are the Cincinnati tri-state area, including Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana; the Pittsburgh tri-state area, covering parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia; and the Chicago tri-state area, also known as Chicagoland, which includes Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

WBLN

WYZZ-TV, a television station (channel 43) licensed to Bloomington, Illinois, United States, which used the call sign WBLN from 1982 to September 1985

WDDD

WDDD-FM, a radio station (107.3 FM) licensed to Johnston City, Illinois, United States

WDLM

WDLM-FM, a radio station (89.3 FM) licensed to East Moline, Illinois, United States

WHBF

Where Historic Black Hawk Fought, a reference to Chief Black Hawk whose tribe occupied the land that is now Rock Island, Illinois, United States, and the namesake for the WHBF broadcasting stations in Rock Island

William T. Major

He founded the First Christian Church (affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination) and built the city's first public meeting hall, Major's Hall, which hosted an early convention of the Illinois branch of the Republican Party and became best known as the site of "Lincoln's Lost Speech".