Illinois Central Historical Society

Significant Milestones In
Illinois Central Railroad History

• 1850 President Millard Fillmore signs a land grant act, allocating federal land to the states.
  
  

• 1851 The state of Illinois gives its federal land to Illinois Central Railroad to build a line from Cairo (at the southern tip of Illinois where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers meet) to Galena (in the extreme northwestern part of the state) and Chicago. Illinois Central is the first land grant railroad in the U.S. For the next decade, Abraham Lincoln is its attorney.
  
  

• 1859 From 1859 to 1861, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) pilots Illinois Central steamboats on the Mississippi River.
  
  

• 1860 The closing of the "Big Gap" in Mississippi links New Orleans with the East by rail.
  
  

• 1861 The Civil War brings Illinois Central's regular service to a halt. It is used by the army to move 31% of the troops and 30% of the supplies through Cairo.
  
  

• 1867 Illinois Central leases the Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad, extending its western line to Iowa Falls.
  
  

• 1869 Andrew Carnegie builds the Dubuque bridge.
  
  

• 1870 Illinois Central lines reaches Sioux City.
  
  

• 1871 Debris from the Great Chicago fire is pushed into Lake Michigan, filling in around Illinois Central's trestle bridge which had been built out in the lake as IC's approach into the city. Eventually this becomes new land.
  
  

• 1874 Illinois Central purchases the New Orleans, Jackson & Great Northern and the Mississippi Central railroads to bring the IC from Cairo to New Orleans. The new line stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and became known as "The Main Line of Mid-America".
  
  

• 1881 The track north of Cairo was standard gauge (4 feet 8 1/2 inches), while the track south of Cairo and the Ohio River was wide gauge. This required that the wheels on every freight car had to be changed-out on each side of the river. On July 29, 1881, beginning at dawn and finishing at 3:00 that afternoon, more than 30,000 men converted the entire 547-mile line to New Orleans to standard gauge.
  
  

• 1889 Illinois Central opens the four-mile-long Cairo Bridge spanning the Ohio River at its widest point. The bridge is the longest metal bridge in the world and replaces ferrying trains across the river, binding the North and South with rails of steel.
  
  

• 1893 Illinois Central purchases the Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad and expands to Louisville and Memphis.
  
  

• 1899 Illinois Central reaches Omaha, Nebraska.
  
  

• 1900 A minor train wreck near Vaughn, Miss., becomes the basis for a legend when the engine-wiper, Wallace Saunders, writes a song about the only person killed in the accident, engineer John Luther Jones whose nickname is "Casey".
  
  

• 1906 Edward H. Harriman gains control of the railroad.
  
  

• 1926 Illinois Central electrifies its suburban line along the Chicago lakefront.
  
  

• 1972 Illinois Central merges with the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio, and becomes the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad. The company will spend the next 14 years rationalizing the 10,000-mile system.
  
  

• 1985 The Iowa Division is sold.
  
  

• 1989 In January, the common stock of the railroad is distributed by its parent, Whitman Corporation (formerly IC Industries, Inc.), to Whitman's shareholders. In March, an investment company, The Prospect Group, Inc., takes the railroad private.
  
  

• 1990 The Prospect Group distributes IC common stock and gives voting control to IC's common stock shareholders. In August, IC common stock begins to trade independently and is now traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "IC".
  
  

• 1996 Illinois Central purchases the Chicago Central & Pacific Railroad (the former Iowa Division) and the Cedar River Railroad.
  
  

Photo by J. Parker Lamb

Notable named passenger trains:

• Panama Limited

• City of New Orleans (Chicago-New Orleans)

• Green Diamond (Chicago-St. Louis)

• City of Miami (Chicago-Miami).

For further reading:

• Mainline of Mid-America. By Carlton J. Corliss, 1950, Creative Age Press, NY, NY.

• History of The Illinois Central Railroad. By John F. Stover, 1975, MacMillan, NY.

• From the Lakes to the Gulf: THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD STORY, By Alan R. Lind, 1992, Transport History Press, Chicago (available at the Company Store)