Origins of Calumet City and Abraham Lincoln Funeral Train marker - Calumet City, IL - Illinois Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Marker Text:

"Two blocks north of this corner the funeral train of Abraham Lincoln entered Illinois at approximately 10:15 a.m. on May 1, 1865, on the Michigan Central Railroad right-of-way. In the autumn of 1869, the founders of the state slaughter house walked east along the railroad tracks and they searched for a suitable site to establish their business. The property they chose was north of the tracks on the east side of the Illinois-Indiana border. The company shipped its first load of dressed, refrigerated beef out of Hammond in October. Within a few years, some of the land south of the tracks on the Illinois side, once owned by Stephen A. Douglas, an attorney for the Michigan Central and a political colleague of Lincoln, became home to many employees of the packing plant. By 1891, the plant was known as G.H. Hammond and Company and employed approximately 1,000 men and women, many of whom lived in the neighborhoods on or just off State Street, including Freitag's Subdivision, which had been created in 1879 in the vicinity of Lincoln Avenue and State Street. Freitag's Subdivision and the residential neighborhoods on Douglas, Ingraham, Forsythe, and Plummer Avenues and the commercial establishments along State Street were incorporated as the village of West Hammond, Illinois, in 1893 and became know as Calumet City in 1924."

The town's historical society not too far away has a poster display on the marker and Lincoln's funeral train (included in gallery.)

Head NW from the marker up State Street to what is left (which is nothing) of the Sin Strip that characterized Calumet City from the 20's through the mid 90's.

County: Cook Historical Society: The Calumet City Historical Society, Calumet City, and the Illinois State Historical Society Dedication Date: 05/31/2009 Location: NW corner of State Street and State Line Avenue Website: [Web Link]

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