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| Visit Litchfield Illinois posted Litchfield Throwback Thursday: Car Works as seen from the mill at the corner of Jackson and Edwards Street. The view is looking toward the southwest across town. Date about 1890. Planet Mill is seen in the background. Bill Edrington shared This is a photo of the former Terre Haute & Alton/St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute/Indianapolis & St. Louis shops in my hometown of Litchfield. The railroad moved its shops to Mattoon in 1870, after the I&StL completed its line between Indianapolis and Terre Haute; took over operation of the StLA&TH line west of Terre Haute; and established Mattoon (roughly halfway between Indianapolis and St. Louis) as a division point. The Litchfield shops were then sold and operated for a number of years as the Litchfield Car Works, which built new equipment for a number of buyers, including horse-drawn streetcars for various cities. The shops stood where the Schalk Field baseball diamonds and the former Brown Shoe Company plant are now located. A "Bee Line" (Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis) boxcar is visible on the siding; the Bee Line and I&StL both became part of the Big Four Route (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway, part of the Vanderbilts' New York Central System) in 1889. In the distance is the Planet Mill, at the time ranked as one of the largest steam-operated flour mills in the world. It was destroyed by a massive explosion in 1893. Photo courtesy of "Visit Litchfield Illinois". |
By 1938 Brown Shoe Company had built the building that is now loft apartments.
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| 1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP |
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