Illinois' Portion of the Cannonball Route.

The Cannonball Route was a historic motorcar trail that ran east of Kansas City, Missouri, to Chicago, Illinois, by way of Hannibal, Missouri and Quincy, Illinois.

1913 Indian motorcycle.

A branch of the route connected the Missouri section of the highway to Des Moines, Iowa, by way of Leon, Iowa. The Chicago Auto Club marked the Illinois segment of the road in 1913.

The Cannonball Wabash River one-lane bridge.

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The 1913 Cannonball Baker Transcontinental Motorcycle Reliability Run started in San Diego, California and ended in New York City, New York. The riders traveled approximately 3,400 miles over 11 days, 12 hours, and 10 minutes.

The route was not straight from San Diego to New York City. Instead, it wound its way through the American Southwest, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, and the Midwest. The riders faced a variety of challenges along the way, including deserts, mountains, and bad weather.

The winner of the 1913 Cannonball was Erwin "Cannonball" Baker, who rode an Indian motorcycle. Baker completed the course in 11 days, 12 hours, and 10 minutes. He averaged a speed of 30 miles per hour and made only 12 stops for repairs. The 1913 Cannonball was a grueling race, but it also helped promote motorcycles' popularity in the United States. 

By 1915, the route was considered "one of the best-marked highways between Quincy and Chicago," an extension from Quincy to the St. Louis – Kansas City highway at Monroe City was posted. The highway routing closely parallels the Hannibal-Quincy to the Chicago branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad.

The route was included in the 1917 Map of Marked Routes provided by the Illinois State Highway Department, a precursor to the modern-day Illinois Department of Transportation. The road stayed west and north of the Illinois River, so this route never had to cross the limited number of Illinois River bridges in 1917.

The Missouri portion of the route ran from Kansas City to Quincy through Hannibal. The route also passed through La Belle, Edina, Kirksville, Milan, Harris, Liberty, Excelsior Springs, Richmond, Carrollton, Chillicothe, Trenton, and Princeton.

In 1917, the Illinois Section of the Cannonball Route was marked as running north from Quincy along modern-day Illinois Route 96 with the Rushville & Quincy Trail. It turned east at modern-day U.S. Route 24 before turning north at Camp Point. It eventually followed modern Illinois Route 61 to Bowen, where the route ran east. The route follows Illinois 61 to its terminus at U.S. Route 136 near Tennessee.

The Cannonball Wabash River one-lane bridge.

The route follows U.S. 136 east as the main road through Macomb to Bardolph, where the route diverts from U.S. 136 and turns north on modern-day Illinois Route 41. The Cannonball Route passed through Bushnell, paralleling the CB&Q railroad north to Galesburg. It ran mainly on what is now U.S. 34 from Galesburg to Chicago, except for diversions to the city centers of Buda, Leland, and Bristol.

Near Yorkville, the route turns northeast onto Cannonball Trail to Bristol. The route then passed through downtown Montgomery and Aurora before running east-northeast to Naperville. Here, the Cannonball Route may have followed any of several streets before joining the Chicago-Kansas City-Gulf Highway in Maywood for the remainder of the journey into Chicago.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Chicagoland: How did the name originate?

As the editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune for most of the first half of the 20th century, Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick usually gets credit for coining the term "Chicagoland."

Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick (1880-1955), was named the President of the Chicago Tribune Company in 1911, and he held this position until his death in 1955. 

The first use of the term "CHICAGOLAND" was in the McHenry Plaindealer Newspaper on April 23, 1849, in an article about new railroad lines coming into Chicago. WGN 720 AM, first used "CHICAGOLAND" as a name of a radio show playing from 8:30pm to 9pm in September of 1928.

In McCormick's time, it referred to the city and its grain, timber, and livestock hinterlands covering parts of five states (Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa), all of which were served by rail delivery of the colonel's newspaper. Later in the century, it came to mean a smaller, denser area of city and suburbs in three states stretching from northern Indiana to southern Wisconsin.

Blanchard's map of Chicago and Suburbs. (1910)
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Chicagoland is a term that carries several common misconceptions. It is believed by many people that Chicagoland, or more formally the "Chicago Metropolitan Area" is restricted to only the areas within the Illinois state boundaries. However, due to the fact that a metro area is based on cultural and employment patterns and similarities, this is simply not true.

Because Chicago is such a large city on its own, it boasts a much wider metro area than most others in the country, save for New York and Los Angeles. Dating back to 1950, when statistical analysis for metro areas emerged, Chicagoland included the eight collared counties of Cook, DuPage, Will, Lake, McHenry, Kane, Kendall, and Grundy as well as Lake County in Indiana which to many a Chicagoan's surprise physically borders the city. Over the years, due to Chicago's expansion, the definition has also widened to include four more Indiana counties (Porter, LaPorte, Newton, and Jasper) as well as Kenosha County in Wisconsin.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.