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1850 President Millard Fillmore signs a
land grant act, allocating federal land to the states.
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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.
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1859 From 1859 to 1861, Samuel Clemens
(Mark Twain) pilots Illinois Central steamboats on the Mississippi
River.
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1860 The closing of the "Big Gap" in
Mississippi links New Orleans with the East by rail.
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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.
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1867 Illinois Central leases the Dubuque
& Sioux City Railroad, extending its western line to Iowa Falls.
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1869 Andrew Carnegie builds the Dubuque
bridge.
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1870 Illinois Central lines reaches Sioux
City.
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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.
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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".
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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.
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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.
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1893 Illinois Central purchases the
Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad and expands to Louisville
and Memphis.
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1899 Illinois Central reaches Omaha,
Nebraska.
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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".
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1906 Edward H. Harriman gains control of
the railroad.
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1926 Illinois Central electrifies its
suburban line along the Chicago lakefront.
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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.
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1985 The Iowa Division is sold.
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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.
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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".
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1996 Illinois Central purchases the
Chicago Central & Pacific Railroad (the former Iowa Division) and
the Cedar River Railroad.