My friends took me to have fun at a Halloween Store in East Peoria. My kind of joint ghouls, horror movie villains and silliness. The first fun I've had in a while.
I have had interest in local coal mines ever since starting genealogy around 1999 and 2000. Well that's when it started because I would often read about little mines or see names of relatives that worked here and there at mines not including my Dad or great Uncle (by marriage who was a coal miner). I have seen listed a mine that has intrigued me but have yet to find much about it other than it was a brief mine in the mid to late 1930's by the name Billings & May. I have found the Billing's name of Arthur Billings but have no luck with the May. Since I have linked every May in this county and is buried here but two as all related it was no doubt a relative of some sort but whom I have yet to find. Anyways that mine was down by Saint David and not the mine I'm going to discuss. A small town north of Canton off route 78 sits a small town of Norris which is situated on the former CB&Q/BN/BNSF railroad tracks which are now long gone since 2017 ...
Ghost towns are abandoned villages that since disappeared or are no longer the population they were in their hey day after an economic down fall, disaster or whatever. For me I consider a ghost town a town that no longer exists but may or may not leave traces behind of it's existence. Fulton County has a lot of old historical towns like Canton which was founded in 1825 and Lewistown which was founded years before Canton. These towns are example of towns that managed to make it despite economic disasters and natural ones. Former towns which have signs marking their location like Civer between Canton and Cuba and Tuscumbia around Bernadotte are examples of towns that didn't make it and ceased to exist and into oblivion of history. The only thing that is exists is those two signs that mark the location. It's sad in a way but it is what it is and people who lived in these areas did what they had to for survival of the time period so if they moved to other...
In a previous post I mentioned this and stated it needed it's own thread which it does because it did have quite a good amount of history for a railway that lasted as it's own for twenty five years before another railroad purchased and turned it into standard gauge for the remaining twenty five years before abandonment. Today little remains of the actual Narrow gauge itself other than a museum and a few items there. The rails from the line has long been removed and much of the right of way is grown over or plowed up. If you know where to look the right of way can still be found in places. I know on the Spoon River drive every october the museum is a good source to find information as well as see old pictures of this once promising railroad as well as a book you can purchase about this railroad. I came to know more about it by purchasing this book here at one of the drives years ago. The book is "History of the Fulton County Narrow Gauge Railway,...
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