Blandinsville, Illinois

City: Blandinsville

County: McDonough

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 40.5500, -90.8500

Eleven miles northwest of Macomb, Bladinsville was named for Joseph L. Blandin, the proprietor of the first general store. Platted in 1842, the village was located in a neighborhood long known as "Job's Settlement." The new town never had a sale of public lots and was surrounded by farm country. The mercantile and laboring classes there depended upon the trade of the farming community. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad threatened the town in 1855, causing it to advocate being a stop along the Toledo, Peoria, & Warsaw Railroad, which saved the town, allowing it to grow and improve.

Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 36; S. J. Clarke, History of McDonough County Illinois (Springfield, IL: D. W. Lusk, 1878), 637-39.