Alma Township

Alma Township

The village of Alma is on the northwest was first laid out by John S. Martin, in corner of the township on the Chicago 1854, and the Martin, French and Tilden branch of the Illinois Central Railroad. It addition was platted about the same time.

It was named Rantoul, after an officer of the railroad, but another town in the state had appropriated that name, and it was changed to Grand Mound City, but in 1855 the name was changed to Alma.

Doctor Hutton built the first store house in 1853, and was the first postmaster. Smith and Hawkins conducted the first blacksmith shop and John Ross the first grist and saw mill. Jefferson Hawkins was the first Methodist preacher; John Ross, the first Christian preacher, and was instrumental in building the first church in which he preached several years and from which he was buried, by the writer, about eighteen years ago. The Methodist Episcopal church was built in 1871. The first school-house was burned and the second was built in 1866 and 1867. It was a two-room building, but it is not now used. Some of the members of the Christian church conceived the thought of a Christian college at Alma. The Rosses and others gave land and money and a good two-story school-house, or college, was built and a college opened, but after a few years' struggle the property was

. Alma has grown from a hamlet to a village of two hundred or three hundred inhabitants and is incorporated as a village. It has many business houses and enjoys the trade of a large part of this, Tonti and Foster townships. On the 28th day of December, 1908, fire broke out in a large hay barn and destroyed the entire business part of Alma. Several stores, warehouses, shops and restaurants were burned and as all were of frame, the loss was total, but with true American grit, the ashes were hardly cold before the debris was being cleared away and preparations for brick buildings were under way. In the spring of 1908 the large fruit cannery of Doctor Shrigley's was burned, also quite a serious loss to the business of the village. Alma is one of the chief fruit shipping points of the county. Thousands upon thousands of baskets of tomatoes, peaches and other fruits are annually shipped, while the Alma gem melon requires two or three cars per day during the season, and are the only rival of the Rocky Fords on the markets.

The station of Brubaker on the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad is an active little hamlet. It contains two stores, a saw-mill, blacksmith shop and the Alma town house. It was laid out bv E. E. Brubaker, who built a two-story store room upon the completion of the railroad in 1895, and he has conducted a flourishing business ever since. Much produce is also shipped from here, and also live stock. The railroad company just after the Chicago & Eastern Illinois took charge opened an extensive ballastburning experiment and acres of clay was dug and mixed with coal and burned, but for some reason the work was stopped, and all that remains is a considerable body of water, forming an artificial lake.

Red Lick Prairie is also the scene in which is laid the "Stories of New Egypt," by Frank Spittler, Esq., and the tale has a foundation in fact, which is as follows : About 1830 or 1835, two brothers with a small amount of money were journeying westward from Vincennes, when they fell in with a third young man, who had about nine hundred dollars on his person. When in the vicinity of Red Lick, the older brother killed the young man and the brothers appropriated the money and buried the body. They settled near Red Lick Prairie and the older brother became an active member of the band of cutthroats and horsethieves, with headquarters at Cave-in- Rock, and operating all over Southern Illinois, and his house was a regular stopping place for the thieves and their plunder. The suspicions of the rapidly increasing population were directed to the elder brother and he disappeared. The younger brother lived in the township and reared a large and respectable family. Such is the tale handed down by the old men and women at the fireside a generation ago, and doubtless there is some truth at the foundation of the story. It is impossible to say how much.