Illinois Central locomotive number one, or number two which was a duplicate, pulled the first scheduled train into Kappa and Panola, May 23, 1853. El Paso did not exist.
(By courtesy of the Illinois Central Railroad Co.)
of what became the vast Illinois Central Railroad System. There was an early Rock Island Railroad connection at La Salle with the Central, but in the construction work, rails and equipment for the latter had been largely shipped from far away Birmingham, England, by water and paid for mostly with Illinois Central stock. One boat loaded with precious rails was sunk off the mouth of the Mississippi, causing a delay in completing the road in accordance with charter terms.
Kappa, Panola and Oneida all learned too late what was happening in railroad affairs to match the sharp bidding of Wathen and Gibson for the new railroad crossing. They had no representative like Denison to favor them. Long before they brought any pressure, Denison told our town's promoters that he probably could influence the Peoria and Oquawka group to build the line over the free right-of-way offered, but that if he did this, he wanted a one-fourth interest in all the town lots they sold prior to the arrival of the railroad over their land. He pressed a point they already knew: that by using two slight curves in the line the rails could come in over Illinois Central land, Sections 6, 8, and 4 in turn, thus avoiding their own Section 5 completely. This would put the rails only one block south of where they are today. Wathen and Gibson didn't want that to happen, so they agreed to Denison's hard
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