Champaign, Illinois "Champaign"
Champaign .
Champaign, Illinois Neil Street in downtown Champaign at evening State Illinois County Champaign - Incorporated Town 1860 (Champaign) Map highlighting City of Champaign Township, Champaign County, Illinois.svg Location of City of Champaign Township inside Champaign County Location of Champaign inside Illinois Location of Illinois in the United States Champaign (English / m pe n/) is a town/city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States.
The United States Enumeration Bureau estimates the town/city was home to 84,513 citizens as of July 1, 2014. Champaign is the tenth-most crowded city in Illinois, and the state's fourth-most crowded city outside of the Chicago urbane area.
Champaign is notable for sharing the ground of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign with its sister town/city of Urbana.
Champaign is also the home of Parkland College which serves about 18,000 students amid the academic year. Due to the college and a number of well known technology startup companies, it is often referred to as the hub, or a momentous landmark, of the Silicon Prairie.
Champaign homes offices for Abbott, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Caterpillar, Deere & Company, Dow Chemical Company, IBM, State Farm, and Intel all of which are Fortune 500 companies, and for Sony. 7.1 Champaign City Building 7.2 Champaign Public Library The Cattle Bank building is the earliest surviving building in Champaign, constructed in 1858.
Champaign was established in 1855, when the Illinois Central Railroad laid its rail track two miles (3 km) west of downtown Urbana.
Originally called "West Urbana", it was retitled Champaign when it acquired a town/city charter in 1860.
Both the town/city and county name were derived from Champaign County, Ohio. During February 1969, Carl Perkins joined with Bob Dylan to write the song "Champaign, Illinois", which Perkins released on his album On Top. The band Old 97's took another Bob Dylan song, "Desolation Row", and combined its melody with new lyrics to make a new song "Champaign, Illinois", which they released with Dylan's blessing on their 2010 album The Grand Theatre Volume One.
The two "Champaign, Illinois" music are not similar to each other, except that Bob Dylan was involved in both of them.
On September 22, 1985, Champaign hosted the first Farm Aid concert at the University of Illinois' Memorial Stadium.
In 2005, Champaign-Urbana (specifically the University of Illinois) was the locale of the National Science Olympiad Tournament, attracting young scientists from all 50 states.
The town/city also hosts the state Science Olympiad competition every year.
The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign once again hosted the National competition on May 20 22, 2010.
In 2013, Champaign was rated fifth best place in the United States for a healthy work-life balance. According to the 2010 census, Champaign has a total region of 22.457 square miles (58.16 km2), of which 22.43 square miles (58.09 km2) (or 99.88%) is territory and 0.027 square miles (0.07 km2) (or 0.12%) is water. Champaign is positioned on mostly high ground, providing sources to the Kaskaskia River to the west, and the Embarras River to the south.
Downtown Champaign drains into Boneyard Creek, which feeds the Saline Branch of the Salt Fork Vermilion River. Champaign shares a border with the neighboring town/city of Urbana; together they are home to the University of Illinois.
Champaign, Urbana, and the bordering village of Savoy form the Champaign-Urbana Metropolitan Area also known as Champaign-Urbana.
The following diagram represents localities inside a 35 miles (56 km) radius of Champaign.
The town/city has a humid continental climate, typical of the Midwestern United States, with hot summers and cold, moderately snowy winters.
Temperatures exceed 90 F (32.2 C) on an average of 24 days per year, and typically fall below 0 F ( 17.8 C) on six evenings annually. The record high temperature in Champaign was 109 F (42.8 C) in 1954, and the record low was 25 F ( 31.7 C), recorded on four separate occasions in 1899, 1905, 1994 and 1999. Climate data for Champaign, Illinois As of the 2010 census, 81,055 citizens and 34,434 total housing units in Champaign.
The current town/city executive or Mayor of Champaign is Deborah Frank Feinen who assumed office in May 2015.
The representative body of Champaign is known as the City Council.
Currently, the City Council is composed of three At-Large members and one member from each of the five council districts positioned inside the town/city limits.
Scott Bennett (D) represents Champaign in the Illinois Senate while Carol Ammons (D) represents Champaign in the Illinois House of Representatives.
Davis (R) serves Illinois's 13th congressional district, which includes Champaign, in the United States House of Representatives.
In addition to the University of Illinois, Champaign is also home to Parkland College.
The Research Park, positioned in southern Champaign and backed by the University of Illinois, is home to many companies, including Riverbed Technology, Citrix Systems, Abbott Laboratories, Dow Innovation Center, Intelligent Medical Objects, Yahoo! and the State Farm Research Center. Numerous other software and technology companies also have offices in Champaign including AMD, Intel, IBM, Amdocs, Infobright, Instarecon, Phonak, Power World, Caterpillar Simulation Center, and Volition, Inc..
The biggest high technology employer is Wolfram Research, with more than 400 employees in Champaign. The United States Army Corps of Engineers maintains the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) in Champaign.
Champaign is also home to nationally recognized record labels, artist management companies, booking agencies and recording studios.
Polyvinyl Records, Undertow Music, Parasol Records, Great Western Record Recorders, Pogo Studios, and Nicodemus Booking Agency are all based in Champaign.
The Illini Union at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
The college is the city's top employer.
According to the City's 2010 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top employers in the town/city are: 1 University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign 10,900 2 Champaign Unit 4 School District 1,378 8 City of Champaign 641 Main article: List of citizens from Champaign, Illinois See also: National Register of Historic Places listings in Champaign County, Illinois A panorama facing south on Neil Street of Downtown Champaign in November 2013 A panorama facing south on Neil Street of Downtown Champaign in November 2013 Champaign City Building Main article: Champaign City Building The Champaign City Building serves as the City Hall and is a recognizable landmark.
The building replaces the initial city building, which sat on the same site until 1937.
Champaign Public Library Main articles: Champaign Public Library and Burnham Athenaeum In the 1980s, part of the downtown Champaign region (Neil St.) was closed to vehicular traffic to problematic a pedestrian mall, but this short-lived experiment was scrapped when company declined.
The City of Champaign gave $3.7 million in tax incentives for the building of M2 and agreed to pay nearly $11 million for a new parking deck. This expansion in downtown Champaign coincided with the larger expansion of the "north Prospect" shopping precinct on the city's northern boundary.
Given the overwhelming success of such suburban shopping areas nationally, new evolution inside any town/city center represented an alternative to the dominant boss out and away from the cities.
North view of one of a several alleyways in Downtown Champaign In April 2007, One Main Development broke ground on M2 on Neil, a nine-story, $40 million, mixed-use universal the biggest ever for downtown Champaign positioned at the corner of Neil and Church Street.
The City of Champaign has constructed a six-story parking structure on Hill Street adjoining to M2, intended to service the greater Downtown; it was instead of in May 2009. For more knowledge on Downtown Champaign visit the Champaign Center Partnerships website. The Art Theater in downtown Champaign Main article: Campustown (Champaign, Illinois) Located along Green Street, this commercial precinct serves as the entertainment and retail center for students at the University of Illinois.
The newly retitled Tower at 3rd (formerly Champaign Hilton, Century 21, Quality Inn, University Inn, Presidential Tower) is positioned in the University District and is over twenty stories high.
Main article: Champaign Park District There are 60 parks, 11 trails, and 14 facilities inside the town/city of Champaign, totaling over 654 acres (2.65 km2). Krannert Art Museum. An Art Museum featuring both undivided and classical art owned by the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
Champaign County Historical Museum. Located in the Historic Cattle Bank assembled in 1858.
The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign fields ten men and eleven women varsity sports.
Baseball 1879 29 10 0 Illinois Field 1988 3,000 Originally Assembly Hall, the State Farm Center is home to the Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball and Illinois Fighting Illini women's basketball teams.
During its history, the town/city has been home to a several separate minor league baseball clubs.
The first in 1889 was a shared club between Champaign and Logansport, Indiana called the Logansport/Champaign-Urbana Clippers.
The town/city hosted its second team, the Champaign-Urbana Velvets from 1911 1914 who played in the Illinois Missouri League until the league disbanded after 1914. The city's most recent minor league team was the Champaign-Urbana Bandits who played amid the single 1994 season of the Great Central League. The Bandits played at Illinois Field.
Twice Champaign was also home to a Collegiate Summer Baseball League team.
The city's Champaign County Colts were a beginning member of the Central Illinois Collegiate League from 1963 1964.
In October 2014, the Midwest Professional Basketball Association announced the creation of the Champaign Swarm as one of its beginning members, scheduled to begin play at the Dodds Athletic Center in January 2015.
The town/city of Champaign is served by Champaign Unit 4 School District.
Unit 4 administers both Champaign Central High School and Champaign Centennial High School.
Champaign is also served by two private high schools.
Thomas More High School which is positioned on the city's far northwest side.
Located inside Champaign are two establishments of higher education, the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and Parkland College.
Champaign is served by I-57, I-72, I-74, two barns lines, and the University of Illinois directed Willard Airport (CMI).
Champaign is served by Willard Airport (CMI) which is directed by the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
Housed at the Willard Airport was the University of Illinois Institute of Aviation, which was forced to close for the 2013 2014 academic year due to college budget cuts after 60 years of operation.
The small-town bus system, which is supported by the taxpayers of the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (MTD) and the University of Illinois, serves Champaign, Urbana, Savoy, and encircling areas.
In 1999, a newly designed intermodal transit center, aptly titled Illinois Terminal by historic reference to the defunct electric interurban rail line that once ran through Champaign, was instead of and serves as a central facility for intercity passenger rail, bus services as well as the MTD's small-town bus network.
Amtrak provides service to Champaign-Urbana by Train 58/59, the City of New Orleans, Train 390/391, the Saluki Train 392/393, the Illini.
The former Illinois Central Railroad line now part of the Canadian National fitness runs north to south through the city.
A spur line from the Canadian National line provides service to a several large industries, including two large food refining plants, on the west edge of Champaign and two grain elevators in outlying communities to the west.
The Norfolk Southern operates an east to west line through Champaign.
The NS line joins industries in easterly Urbana to the Norfolk Southern chief line at Mansfield, Illinois, west of Champaign.
107.1 WPGU, "Champaign's Alternative", Alternative modern NOAA Weather Radio station WXJ76 transmits from Champaign and is licensed to NOAA's National Weather Service Central Illinois Weather Forecast Office at Lincoln, transmitting on a recurrence of 162.550 MHz (channel 7 on most newer weather radios, and most SAME weather radios).
The station activates the SAME tone alarm feature and a 1050 Hz tone activating older radios (except for AMBER Alerts, using the SAME feature only) for hazardous weather and non-weather warnings and emergencies, along with chose weather watches, for the Illinois counties of Champaign, Coles, De - Witt, Douglas, Edgar, Ford, Moultrie, Piatt, and Vermillion.
Champaign Urbana urbane region Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: City of Champaign "City of Champaign official website History".
"Weatherbase: Historical Weather for Champaign, Illinois, United States of America Travel, Vacation and Reference Information".
Illinois State Water Survey.
"Weatherbase: Historical Weather for Champaign, Illinois, United States of America - Travel, Vacation and Reference Information".
"Champaign Champaign County IL historical weather trends".
Historical Enumeration Data Retrieved on 2014-6-24 "City Council".
City of Champaign.
"State Farm Research Center".
Local jobs: Top five metros/cities dominant the turnaround Christian Science Monitor April 15, 2011 "City of Champaign CAFR" (PDF).
"Destihl's Champaign locale set for opening by late fall".
"Champaign Center Partnership".
HPA | Architecture and Design Company Chicago | University Architecture Archived January 16, 2014, at the Wayback Machine..
Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Archived November 20, 2008, at the Wayback Machine..
Champaign, Illinois Minor League history.
Mayor wants to explore options for minor league baseball in Champaign.
The City of Champaign Illinois: Public Transportation Accessed October 18, 2007 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Champaign, Illinois.
City of Champaign Web Site University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign chief page Champaign County Convention and Visitors Bureau Early History of Champaign City of Champaign Maps History of Champaign Champaign County Top Employers Directory City of Champaign University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Municipalities and communities of Champaign County, Illinois, United States
Categories:
Champaign, Illinois - 1855 establishments in Illinois - Cities in Illinois - Cities in Champaign County, Illinois - Populated places established in 1855 - University suburbs in the United States
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