Kinmundy Township

Kinmundy Township

Kinmundy, a city of about fifteen hundred inhabitants, is situated on the Chicago branch of the Illinois Central Railroad. It was laid out in April, 1857, on section 22, which brings it near the center of the township. W. T. Sprouse laid out the city. Isaac Eagan laid out an addition in 1858. Other additions have been laid out from time to time. In 1895 trie Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad, then the Chicago, Peoria & Memphis, was built through the township, and passed through the western part of the city. The city and township are said to be named after a Scotchman, who was a stockholder in the Central when it was built, and visited this part of the county. W. B. Eagan built the first house in 1857, in which he kept a general store and was the first postmaster. The house was two stories and Eagan lived above the store. Eagan had kept a country store two or three years at the old homestead before Kinmundy was laid out. The Illinois depot was built in 1856, and like most Illinois Central depots of that day, was a big barn-like structure. Later a neat little depot was built and the old one used as a freight room. Kinmundy, like nearly all towns along the Illinois Central, is built on both sides of the railroad, and the crossing is dangerous, and deaths from being struck by trains are too often the result of this building of the towns. Several deaths at Kinmundy have resulted, among them that of Miss Cammerer, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Cammerer, about twelve years ago. Miss Cammerer was walking with her mother, and stepping around the end of a car standing on the track, was struck by a fast train, the mother barely escaping the same fate. About the same time an entire family, except one child, were killed at the crossing at Alma. At the south side of the town Willis Wilburn built a small store room and sold goods for a time, in 1855. He built a hotel south of the present depot, about the same time. Doctor Skilling kept the first drug store, and Dr. W. W. Elliott was the first medical practitioner. Henry Eagan was the first "village blacksmith". In 1858 Sprouse built a saw and grist mill, but it was moved away in a short time, but he buit another in 1864. and in 1868 Songer Brothers built the present brick mill. It too, was moved away. Another mill was built in 1877 and passed into

The first bank was the W. T. Haymond & Company's bank, organized in 1870. The capital stock fully paid in was forty-five thousand dollars. This bank was a good business proposition, and was a stable institution. On the death of Mr. Haymond in 1899 a National bank was organized and is at present one of the safe banks of the county. There is a private bank called The Warren Bank, doing a good business.

The building of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad gave an impetus to business of Kinmundy, and several good brick business houses were built, but an extensive fire in 1904 destroyed about one-half of the business part of the town. It has, however, been rebuilt. A short time later another fire destroyed a large part of the remainder of the town. It too, has been rebuilt.

Kinmundy has six churches, the Methodist Episcopal, and Christian churches are fine, modern structures; the others are old style frame buildings, and are xised by the Cumberland Presbyterians, Presbyterians, Methodist Episcopal, South, and Catholic.

The schools of Kinmundy are good, with energetic teachers, and a high school course of three years, but the building is old and unsuited for modern school purposes.