Fall 24 OP Newsletter

HERITAGE SITES HERITAGE SITES

“Follow the Flag”: The Arrival of the Railroad in Orland Each newsletter we will delve into a different piece of Orland history. This season we will be exploring the history of the railroad and the impact it had in Orland Park. In the nineteenth century, the construction of a train station was a big deal for rural communities like Orland Park. The railroad brought population growth, increased economic opportunities and social and cultural change. Many people in Illinois wanted a railroad constructed after hearing about how successful it was on the East Coast. In 1837, the United States government passed the Internal Improvement Act, which stated that $10 million was to be set aside for the construction of a 1,300 mile railroad. The Northern Cross Railroad, which ran 55 miles between Springfield and Meredosia, opened in 1842 and was the first railroad to lay tracks through Illinois. In 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed a federal land grant bill that gave 2.5 million acres of land for the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad to create a north-south route linking the Gulf of Mexico to Chicago. On December 23, 1851, construction began; approximately 10,000 workers at a time worked on the 700-mile line that ran the length of the state – from Chicago in the north all the way down to the southern tip of Illinois at Cairo. In 1856, the railroad was completed, eventually becoming known as the “Main Line of Mid-America.” The company that laid tracks through Orland was the Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railroad, which formed on November 11, 1879. On August 1, 1889, the name changed simply to the Wabash Railroad. The railroad operated within the mid-central United States, with tracks through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri. Most importantly for Orland, one of their planned lines would go from Chicago to Decatur and St. Louis with a stop in Orland.

After hearing the news, Orland Township Supervisor and Illinois State Representative, John Humphrey, purchased a large plot of land near the proposed tracks. One year later a train depot was constructed on Union Avenue in 1880, officially making Orland a stop on the line. The train depot was originally named Sedgwick, but soon after the name was changed to Orland, after the name of the town. After a few weeks’ delay, on August 8, 1880, the first passenger service began in Orland. While there were three daily express passenger trains running on this line, they only passed through Orland without stopping. The train that stopped in Orland was the all-stop local passenger train that departed Decatur for Chicago every weekday morning and returned every weekday evening.

Wabash Workers on the Orland Line, c. 1879

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