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The Illinois Central Railroad ( reporting mark IC ), sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the Central United States. Its primary routes connected Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, and thus, the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.
Jul 5, 2021 · Illinois Central Railroad dated from 1851 when it was chartered by its home state to build a line from Cairo, at Illinois’ southern tip — the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers — to Galena, in the northwestern corner of the state and at the time a mining center.
Feb 4, 2024 · With a unique north-south route linking the Gulf with Chicago and interchanging with virtually every major American railroad in the process, Illinois Central had established itself as one of the country's preeminent carriers by century's end.
The Illinois Central Railroad profoundly affected the economic and physical development of Illinois and Chicago. It was the primary link between the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, providing access to the South for Chicago products and culture and a route north for millions during the “ Great Migration .
The Illinois Central Railroad Company (ICRR), known as the Main Line of the Mid-West, was one of the oldest Class I railroads in the United States. First conceived by the Illinois General Assembly in the 1830s, ICRR became the first land grant railroad in the United States through the passage of Senator Stephen A. Douglass’s Federal Land ...
Jun 4, 2024 · Illinois Central Railroad (IC), former U.S. railroad founded in 1851 that expanded service from Illinois to much of the Midwest before merging with the Canadian National Railway Company (CN) in 1999. With its charter in 1851, the Illinois Central Railroad was the first of many railroads to receive.
The Illinois Central Railroad (IC), sometimes called the "Main Line of Mid-America," had primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois with New Orleans, Louisiana and Birmingham, Alabama. A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa (1870).
In Chicago, the principal terminus, the Illinois Central (which would become known as the IC) operated out of the Great Central Depot, located just south of the Chicago River near Lake Michigan. By the end of the 1850s, the road's annual revenues had reached $2 million a year.
Illinois Central was formed out of a need for a large railway network in the state of Illinois. Overtime, they became one of the most dominant lines in the M...
Image. U.S. central states from Great Lakes to Gulf of Mexico, showing relief by hachures, drainage, cities and towns, roads and railroads. Principal north-south line, chartered in 1850 and incorporated in 1851. 706 miles opened for traffic in 1856. First railroad to receive lands granted by the passage of the "Illinois Central Land Grant Bill."
