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1940 Map of Elgin

Name: 1940 Topographic Map of Elgin
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1957
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1957

About this map

The Fox River valley serves as the primary corridor for settlement and industry in this 1940 revision, where the growing city of Elgin anchors the southern reaches alongside the State Hospital. The landscape is defined by its transition from industrial river towns like Carpentersville and East Dundee to the sprawling agricultural townships of Rutland and Plato.

Railroad connectivity is dense, with the Chicago Milwaukee and St Paul RR and Illinois Central RR cutting through the prairie to serve rural outposts such as Pingree Grove and Plato Center. Dozens of numbered and named country schoolhouses, such as Munshawville School and Hickory Grove School, are scattered across the quadrangle, marking the center of local rural life before the mid-century trend toward school consolidation changed the Illinois educational landscape.