Twenty-six . . . . . now occupied and used by the said company, with the privilege of putting in side-tracks on said land to a distance of 50 feet from the center of the main track now used by them." Mrs. Gibson was then living and joined in the deed,15 which made a matter of record that which had previously been mostly a verbal agreement.
Again, on February 28, 1879, after the supreme court decision, Gibson and Wathen jointly signed another deed to the T. P. & W. and included the Illinois Central, granting the railroads everything they were then using, but "for depot, grounds and railroad uses only." This applied only to ground owned by them to the south of the original P. & 0. right-of-way inclusive, and extended all across Section 26. This last deed16 assigned an additional twenty-five feet outside the first Y tracks then used, on which they might construct a second track. The east Y had been doubletracked for several years; the west Y was doubled after 1869.
A town boom was under way during the war, and other adjoining land owners hastened to add to the original town in quick succession:
McClellan's Addition, May 17, 1864.
Hamilton's Addition, August 2, 1865.
Bestor & Bay's Addition, October 30, 1865. (not Geo. C. Bestor.)
Ferbrache's Addition, March 26, 1866.
Gibson's (first) Addition, April 30, 1866.
Neifing's Addition, January 30, 1867.
English's Addition, August 9, 1867.
Tyler's Addition, December 2, 1867.
Brown's Addition, January 7, 1868.
Wathen's Addition, June 4, 1868.
Gibson's (second) Addition, September 8, 1874.
Gibson's (third) Addition, July 5, 1913. (by heirs.)
Ben Hazlett, the Jenkins Brothers, John Hibbs, William C. Bayne, John and Eli Bennett, the McClellan families, Wilbur H. Boies, Ludwik Chlopicki, Wm. R. Willis, Handley King and possibly a few others were already citizens of El Paso before Wathen and Gibson moved to town in 1857. Wathen later built his fine home at 78 South Walnut Street, still in use as the Elms Motel and dining room. Gibson erected his fine mansion, now the center of Elmwood Court, a little later, living with the Isaac Jenkins family during its construction. It has long been known as the Hodgson Place because Ed Hodgson, a son-in-law, lived in it for many years. It is now the Cryer Apartments, and both it and the Wathen residence are kept in an excellent state of repair.
Mr. Gibson was born in Pennsylvania October 2, 1818, and came to Illinois with his parents in 1831, living in Washington, Wesley City and in Henry. He made several trips down the Mississippi as a flatboater and trader when a young man, after leaving his father's farm three miles north of Peoria. He married Miss Matilda Health of Ohio on June 1, 1843, and after her death in El Paso in 1873 he lived with his daughter, May Fleming. The Gibson family consisted of the following children: William W. and George F. Gibson; Mrs. Sarah Nevada Here-
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