Pontiac, Illinois Pontiac IL Livingston County Courthouse5.JPG Location of Pontiac inside Illinois Location of Pontiac inside Illinois Wikimedia Commons: Pontiac, Illinois Pontiac is a town/city in Livingston County, Illinois, United States.
It is the governmental center of county of Livingston County. The town is also the setting of the 1984 movie, Grandview, U.S.A.
Pontiac is positioned at 40 52 48 N 88 37 49 W.
According to the 2010 census, Pontiac has a total region of 7.87 square miles (20.38 km2), of which 7.73 square miles (20.02 km2) (or 98.22%) is territory and 0.14 square miles (0.36 km2) (or 1.78%) is water. Pontiac lies on the Vermilion River.
On December 4, 1982, Pontiac had the worst flood in the town's history, cresting at 19.16 feet.
Climate data for Pontiac, Illinois (1981 2010 normals) Pontiac was laid out on 27 July 1837 by Henry Weed (? Their plan was to problematic a seat for the newly established county of Livingston.
The town they would found was one of the last of the hundreds of new suburbs laid out in Illinois between 1835 and 1837.
Livingston County, which had only been created five months before, as yet had almost no functioning government. Unfortunately, Illinois, like the rest of the nation, was fast slipping into a profound depression that would soon lead the next decade to be called "the hungry forties." They had agreed to give the new county $3,000 toward erecting new buildings, to erect "a good and substantial wagon bridge" athwart the Vermilion River, and to build a county courthouse.
Perry, the county's first storekeeper; James Mc - Kee, who had in interest at a foundry at the new town site; and Jesse W.
Fell was the person who had been responsible for creating the new county. As it turned out, for the town's three founders, the future of Pontiac would not be their problem.
History of Livingston County Illinois The men who established Pontiac would not be its developers.
The design of the Original Town would prove to be one of Pontiac's most enduring features.
In these early suburbs the enhance square served to define the town center and therefore to establish the locale of the highest value lots.
Isaac Wicher, the County Surveyor, made the initial survey of Pontiac and staked out its streets and lots. Pontiac was the only town laid out in Livingston County in the 1830s, but similar square-centered suburbs from this time can be found at Metamora, Lexington, Danvers, Clinton, and Le Roy, all established inside two years of Pontiac. The Original Town of Pontiac differed somewhat from these the rest because it was unusually large, with ninety-three blocks, most divided into eight lots with some left unsubdivided.
In order to do this he needed a name and chose "Pontiac" with respect to the Native American leader, who as far anyone knew had never set foot in the region that would be Livingston County. Fell had also chose the name of Livingston County.
Before leaving the county Seth Weed had made a donation to the town by building the first home in Pontiac. After the Young brothers' deaths, Isaac Fellows came west to settle their estate.
Early expansion was painfully slow, so slow that rivals decided there was a good chance they could strip the honor and the company of the governmental center of county from Pontiac.
The proprietors of Pontiac, they argued, had not lived up to their obligations: the courthouse was unfinished and no bridge athwart the Vermilion had been built.
Their new locale for the seat of Government of Livingston County, four or five miles upstream would, they said, be more centrally located.
Fortunately for Pontiac, a two-thirds majority was needed to re-locate a county seat, and by a small margin, Pontiac was able to continue to be the locale of the county offices. After considerable delay, the first Courthouse, a twenty-two by thirty foot wooden building, was rather than and, in 1847, the promised bridge athwart the Vermilion was at last done.
The 1878 History of Livingston County remarked, "the town of Pontiac was little more than a name." One early settler remembered that in Livingston County one person in two suffered from the dreaded disease. In 1851 there was a second attempt to displace Pontiac.
On 23 June 1851 a town called Richmond was platted two miles east of Pontiac.
These men had figured that the new Chicago and Mississippi Railroad would miss Pontiac and would have to cross the Vermilion River at their location.
Fell, who had retained a strong economic and civil interest in Pontiac and had meaningful friends among the barns officials.
The tracks missed Richmond and passed through Pontiac, with the station positioned in Fell's First Addition to the town.
Richmond was quickly abandoned; some of its buildings were moved to Pontiac. On the Fourth of July 1854 an exhibition train steamed into Pontiac and a several months later regular service on the barns , soon to be known as the Chicago and Alton, began.
Suddenly, Pontiac was a boom town.
By 1866 the citizens of Livingston County could afford to spend $18,000 to construct a new contemporary jail in Pontiac. In 1870 the state established the Reform School at Pontiac.
The town of Pontiac added another $25,000 in bonds and the first buildings were constructed. In 1892 this facility became the Illinois State Reformatory and is now the Pontiac Correctional Center.
In 1870 a fire finished $50,000 worth of buildings in downtown Pontiac and, like many Illinois towns, the town fathers, spurred on by insurance companies, created a "fire district," a zone in the commercial part of the town/city where buildings had to be constructed of brick or some other fireproof material. These districts make Pontiac a classic example of one of the key visual features of the American Midwest: suburbs with brick commercial districts surrounded by wooden residences.
During Independence Day celebrations on 4 July 1874, stray fireworks started a blaze which burned the courthouse, the Union Block, and the Phoenix Block. Undaunted, Livingston County set out to find the best possible architect to design a new and more splendid building.
Between 1875 and 1900 new buildings were erected around the courthouse square. From its beginnings Pontiac had been a political town and it would remain one.
Grant would pass through Pontiac on his way to visit his son, they begged the general to stay over for breakfast, and a large reception committee quickly arranged a celebration.
On 3 June 1903, amid his whistle stop tour through central Illinois, Theodore Roosevelt spoke in Pontiac and unveiled the soldier's monument. He spoke there again in 1910.
This happened at Pontiac.
Louis with Chicago, was Pontiac's first barns .
The new state highway passed along Ladd Street and brought traffic through the center of Pontiac. The 1891 Iron Truss bridge over the Vermilion proved inadequate to carry increased traffic over the river, and in 1925 it was replaced with a new steel and concrete structure. In 1925 the designation of the road was changed to Route 66, but this was only a change in name, as most of this famous highway simply borrowed the pavement of Route 4.
It started in a modest way in 1949 at Pontiac's Chautauqua Park next to the Vermilion River as a gathering of interested citizens who brought together a compilation of old farm machinery.
Highway oriented businesses soon clustered around these roads, at first on the north and south sides of Pontiac, and later near Exit 197, west of the old town center.
Unlike many towns, Pontiac has continued to be serviced by barns passenger service.
Louis, and Pontiac has continued to be an meaningful stop. Pontiac is home to the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame.
It was previously positioned at Dixie Truckers Home in Mc - Lean, Illinois, but was moved to a new, larger locale in Pontiac when Dixie changed ownership.
The Illinois Department of Corrections Pontiac Correctional Center is positioned in Pontiac. Pontiac homes the male death row.
Prior to the January 11, 2003 commutation of death row sentences, male death row inmates were homed in Pontiac, Menard, and Tamms correctional centers. Governor Rod Blagojevich threatened to close down this prison in 2008.
Pontiac Township High School District #90 operates Pontiac Township High School.
Bob Waldmire's van, inspiration for Fillmore (Cars), on display in the Route 66 Hall of Fame in Pontiac.
Pontiac is home to a several exhibitions including the Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum, the Pontiac-Oakland Automobile Museum, the Livingston County War Museum, the Yost House Museum and Art Center & the International Walldog Mural and Sign Art Museum.
Downtown Pontiac has a compilation of more than 20 murals that depict affairs, citizens and places from the history of the town.
Pontiac, Illinois (Amtrak station) Pontiac Municipal Airport (KPNT) is 3 miles north of the town While protagonist Dean Winchester was dead in between seasons three and four he was buried in Pontiac, IL and most of the first episode of season four takes place in Pontiac, although the places were all fictional with no real world counterparts in the genuine Pontiac.
History of Livingston County Illinois (Chicago: Le - Baron, 1878) pp.
History of Livingston, 1878, p.
History of Livingston, 1878) p.
History of Livingston, 1878, p.291.
Selling Location: Early Illinois Townsite Advertisements 1835 1837 (Normal: Department of Geography - Geology, Illinois State University, 2010) pp 10-14, 153.
Combined Atlases 1893 and 1911, Livingston County, Illinois (Mt.
History of Livingston, 1878, p.295.
Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Livingston County Illinois (Chicago: Munsell, 1908) p.8.
History of Livingston, 1878, p.
History of Livingston, 1878, p.
History of Livingston, 1878, p.260.
History of Livingston, 1878, p.300.
History of Livingston 1878, p.
History of Livingston, 1878, p.243.
Reports Made to the General Assembly of the State of Illinois (Springfield: State of Illinois, 1875) p.
History of Livingston, 1878, p.
History of Livingston, 1878, p.
History of Livingston, 1878, p.242.
Pontiac, Illinois Sesquicentennial 1837 - 1987 (Pontiac: c.
Pontiac Sesquicentennial, 1887, P.
Pontiac Sesquicentennial, 1887, p.168.
Pontiac Sesquicentennial, 1887, p.
"Pontiac Correctional Center." Municipalities and communities of Livingston County, Illinois, United States
Categories:
Cities in Illinois - Cities in Livingston County, Illinois - Micropolitan areas of Illinois - County seats in Illinois - Pontiac, Illinois - Populated places established in 1837 - 1837 establishments in Illinois
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