Gillespie, IL: Lost/Big Four Depot

(Satellite, not only is the depot lost, but so is the railroad)

Bill Edrington posted
Class C-63a 4-4-0 #7042 leads a westbound “accommodation” train at Gillespie, Illinois, probably about 1910, in this uncredited photo from the collection of the BenGil Post.  After 1904 all Big Four express trains to and from St. Louis used the new Short Line cutoff between Hillsboro and Lenox via Livingston, leaving local trains like this one as the only passenger service on the Old Line via Litchfield, Gillespie, Bunker Hill and East Alton

The interurban that went through town was the Illinois Traction, and the railroad that was east of town by the coal washer was the C&NW.

1915/49 Gillespie Quad @ 62,500

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP
Dennis DeBruler commented on Bill's post
Since the depot was on the north side of the tracks, my guess is that it was the rectangle in the northeast quadrant of the tracks and Macoupin Street in this 1939 aerial photo, https://maps.app.goo.gl/fdpxGYBxkTmxDnry5.

Bill Edrington: Dennis DeBruler - Correct.

Bill Edrington posted two photos with the comment: "On March 1, 1912 an eastbound special train on the Old Line carrying Illinois Governor Charles S. Deneen stopped at the depot in Gillespie, where Deneen addressed a sizable crowd from the train’s rear platform.  I don‘t know the circumstances, although it may have been part of a whistle-stop campaign tour.  (Deneen lost his bid for reelection that year to former Chicago mayor Edward F. Dunne.)  Earlier there had been some labor unrest at the nearby mines of the Superior Coal Company, a Chicago & North Western subsidiary which produced much of the C&NW‘s locomotive coal.  Photographer Frank J. Orso, an immigrant from Italy and longtime Gillespie resident, worked for the C&NW for many years."

1

2

It appears that there was a grain elevator south of the tracks about 1.5 blocks east of Macoupin. That land is now used by the Illinois Valley Rehab Center. I could not find a newer grain elevator in this area.