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1909 Map of Tallula

Name: 1909 Topographic Map of Tallula
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1927
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1927

About this map

The Sangamon River carves through the northern half of this Central Illinois landscape, defining the topography near Tice and Petersburg. At the turn of the century, the region was a dense lattice of competing railroads, where the Chicago and Alton RR and the Baltimore and Ohio Southwestern RR crossed the prairie to serve agricultural hubs like Pleasant Plains and Tallula.

Smaller settlements and station points such as Farmingdale, Richland, and Lloyd reveal the historic density of rural life before mid-century consolidation. The southern portion is marked by the winding courses of Spring Creek and Prairie Creek, while the village of Berlin sits at the edge of Island Grove, a pocket of woodland within the heavily surveyed township grid. These details reflect an era of intensive rail-based commerce and the transition from the river-bottom timber to the open, fertile uplands of the Sangamon Valley.