Springfield and Alton Turnpike Road Company

City: Springfield, Alton

County: Sangamon, Madison

State: Illinois

On March 1, 1833, the Illinois General Assembly chartered the Springfield and Alton Turnpike Road Company for the purpose of constructing a turnpike road from Springfield, Illinois, to a point on the Mississippi River in St. Clair County, Illinois, across from St. Louis, Missouri. The General Assembly gave the company ten years to complete the road, and it also empowered the company to build a railroad in lieu of a turnpike. In 1835, the General Assembly changed the western terminus from a point on the Mississippi River to Alton, Illinois. Two years later, the General Assembly empowered the company to extend the road eastward from Springfield to Bloomington, Illinois. In 1839, the General Assembly gave the company another five years to complete the road. Two years later, the General Assembly gave the company authority to complete a single-track railroad between Springfield and Alton.

“An Act to incorporate the Springfield and Alton Turnpike Road Company,” 1 March 1833, Private Laws of Illinois (1833), 77-82; An Act to Amend an Act Entitled "An Act to Incorporate the Springfield and Alton Turnpike Road Company," Approved March 1, 1833; An Act to Amend the Act Incorporating the Springfield and Alton Turnpike Road Company; An Act Extending the Time to the Springfield and Alton Turnpike Road Company to Complete Said Road; An Act Supplemental to the Charter of the Springfield and Alton Turnpike Road Company; Norman A. Graebner, "The Apostle of Progress," in The Public and Private Lincoln: Contemporary Perspectives, eds. Cullom Davis, Charles B. Strozier, Rebecca M. Veach, and Geoffrey C. Ward (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979), 78.