Mid-Century Decatur

Mid-Century Decatur Celebrating Mid-Century Architecture and Images from Decatur, Illinois, 1949-1969

It's a wet and dreary October day in 1967. We look at the corner of Water and South Park Street.Photo: H&R
10/15/2026

It's a wet and dreary October day in 1967. We look at the corner of Water and South Park Street.

Photo: H&R

Illinois Terminal services the Borden Chemical Plant just west of Illiopolis along US-36 circa 1964. The plant produced...
10/14/2026

Illinois Terminal services the Borden Chemical Plant just west of Illiopolis along US-36 circa 1964. The plant produced polyvinyl chloride and other chemicals used in plastics. The site was originally part of the Sangamon Ordnance Plant operated during World War II and was converted to chemical production in 1949. Borden purchased the plant from American Polymer in 1953.

The plant was sold to Formosa Plastics in 2002. In 2004, the plant was destroyed in a fiery explosion that killed five workers and it never reopened. Four of the five were from Decatur. They were Linda and Randy Hancock, Joseph Machalek, and Larry Graves. Glenn Lyman of Cornland was also killed.

Photo: Jim Hunsaker, Collection of Mark Barnett

A cub scout contemplates Lincoln in 1959.The bronze sculpture by Fred M. Torrey depicts the young Abraham Lincoln at age...
10/13/2026

A cub scout contemplates Lincoln in 1959.

The bronze sculpture by Fred M. Torrey depicts the young Abraham Lincoln at age 21, just before he settled at New Salem, in Macon County. The figure is seated on a tree stump with his right foot resting on a log. Lincoln holds an open book in his left hand, with the axe beside him. The inscription on the base reads, “At twenty-one I came to Illinois,” honoring Lincoln’s arrival in Decatur. The Lincoln family arrived in Decatur from Indiana in March 1830 and built a cabin by the Sangamon River. The statue was erected on the Millikin University campus in 1948.

Photo: Citizens Bank

A Pennsylvania Railroad mixed freight from Peoria crosses the WABIC diamond in Decatur on its way to Terre Haute, Indian...
10/12/2026

A Pennsylvania Railroad mixed freight from Peoria crosses the WABIC diamond in Decatur on its way to Terre Haute, Indiana, during the summer of 1967. The Pennsylvania held trackage rights on the Illinois Central "Charter Line" through Decatur between Maroa and Hervey City dating to the time of the Vandalia Line Railroad.

The Pennsylvania Freight Station had previously been located until 1961 nearby at the southeast corner of Broadway (now MLK) and Marietta Street. Remnants of the siding rails can still be found where they crossed Morgan Street, a block north of the Tillamook plant.

The old F7A engine #1495 (formerly 9695A) has been renumbered in anticipation of the impending merger with the New York Central Railroad. The locomotive has been working on the railroad since April 1949. The venerable F7 engines, once a daily sight on the Wabash in Decatur, are by this date only seen on the occasional B&O or Pennsylvania freight train.

© History of the Heartland, used with permission.

Photo: Al Chione, Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

The three-car "Wabash Cannon Ball" passes Millikin University in the Fall, circa 1969.GP7 2412 is the former Nickel Plat...
10/10/2026

The three-car "Wabash Cannon Ball" passes Millikin University in the Fall, circa 1969.

GP7 2412 is the former Nickel Plate Road 1412. Hastily painted over in Pevler blue after the acquisition by Norfolk & Western in 1964, the paint is already fading. The yellow coach in Union Pacific livery is a former Wabash car that had been in joint service on the "City of St. Louis" from the west coast. It would later be repainted blue.

Photo: William A. Shaffer

The "Dragon Wagon" appeared in the 1966 Stephen Decatur High School Homecoming Parade.
10/09/2026

The "Dragon Wagon" appeared in the 1966 Stephen Decatur High School Homecoming Parade.

Norfolk & Western E8 3800 (former Wabash 1000), rests outside the Decatur shops sixty years ago in October 1966. Deliver...
10/08/2026

Norfolk & Western E8 3800 (former Wabash 1000), rests outside the Decatur shops sixty years ago in October 1966. Delivered in October 1951, the aging locomotive was then turning 15 years old. The former Wabash E-8 units were disposed from 1970.

Photo: James D. Bopp, Collection of Rick Burns

This is the 400 block of N Water Street in October 1962, sixty-four years ago. The first building is the former Empress...
10/07/2026

This is the 400 block of N Water Street in October 1962, sixty-four years ago. The first building is the former Empress Theater. The storefronts are empty as the block is about to be razed the following month for the site of the municipal parking lot which now sits mostly unused.

H&R photo

Cecil and Basil Wattles harvest apples at the Pattengill Orchard near Cisco on October 6, 1963. Almost all of the apple...
10/06/2026

Cecil and Basil Wattles harvest apples at the Pattengill Orchard near Cisco on October 6, 1963. Almost all of the apples were sold locally in Decatur markets. The orchard was part of a diversified farm economy in Central Illinois that no longer exists.

Photo: L. Roger Turner, H&R

The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad yard office in Decatur, just off Pearl Street, on October 5, 1966, exactly sixty years ago...
10/05/2026

The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad yard office in Decatur, just off Pearl Street, on October 5, 1966, exactly sixty years ago today.

The B&O yard stretched along the north side of Eldorado Street between 22nd Street and the Illinois Central tracks by Front Street. Little known Pearl Street runs parallel to Eldorado Street just to the north. Today it is little more than an alleyway.

The B&O tracks ran into Decatur along US-36 from the east into their yard. The railroad then shared the Wabash tracks through Decatur to connect with their line to Springfield, the western terminus of the B&O system.

In the background is the old Wabash coaling tower, which still stands near Jasper Street.

Photo: Thomas Underwood, Collection of Barriger Library

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