In 1926, the Illinois Attorney General filed a petition to dissolve 132 organizations chartered in Williamson County from time immemorial. Why, because none of them had ever filed a report since they were chartered or were delinquent in filing.
Whereas, I would love to get my hands on that list, I can only take note of two of those charters that were dissolved, but both are interesting nonetheless.
One such incorporation that doesn’t appear to have gotten off of the ground was the Carbondale and Marion Plank Road Company. This was presumably a wooden plank road or literally a road made out of wooden planks, as was not uncommon in the day. Well, it’s better than walking in the mud. Hundreds of miles of early road were made in this way.
An act to incorporate the Plank Road Company was approved on February 18, 1857 by James M. Campbell, Henry Sanders of Carbondale, James D. Pulley, Robert M. Hundley and J.M. Cunningham of Marion with a capital stock of $40,000 in shares of $50 each. The road company was contracted to build a road from Carbondale to Marion commencing at the east end of Main Street in Carbondale and thence to run as practicable on the survey of the state road from Carbondale to Marion, by way of Eight Mile Prairie.
Eight Mile was a prairie that was located on the west side of Williamson County roughly where Cambria is located today. It was named such because in the very, early days of the county’s existence the only post office was located at the village of Bainbridge. Bainbridge was just west of Marion and was located where Bainbridge Trail (the road to the Heartland Hospital) joins Old Route 13.
For residents of Eight Mile to receive their mail it involved an eight, mile walk or horse ride to Bainbridge to pick up mail, thus Eight Mile. The prairie also passed its name to the entire County Township in most of early history, but is now called Carterville Township.
The second incorporation that didn’t come together was the Marion Academy. Marion might have been the home of an institution of higher learning if plans outlined in an application filed with the Secretary of State in 1841 by the President and Trustees of the Marion Academy had materialized.
Incorporators of the Marion Academy who received a charter under a special act of the state legislature on February 17, 1841 were Joe G. Rice, Joab Freeman, Archibald T. Benson, John Pascall, John Hunley and Samuel Aikman.
It makes you wonder what else we almost had.
(Data extracted from R.M. Hundley notes; Daily Republican Bi-Centennial Edition, 1976; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 12/17/2013)