Pontiac History - Livingston County Illinois Genealogy & History

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Pontiac History
Livingston County, Illinois
(Transcribed by: Teri Moncelle Colglazier)

Seat of justice and largest city of Livingston County is Pontiac, located on the Vermilion River in the geographical center of the county.
Although the corporate population of Pontiac is 8,990, it is the center of a retail trading area estimated at more than 40,000.
Within the boundaries of the city is located the Pontiac branch of the Illinois state penitentiary system. It occupies twenty-six buildings on a twenty-acre tract of landscaped ground and houses more than 2,000 inmates.
Just west of Pontiac may be found the Chief City Airport.
On the courthouse lawn in Pontiac may be found a stone memorial to the celebrated Indian chief after whom the city is named. Here, also, stands the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument, memorializing men of the county who fell in the Civil War.
The city's central business district contains branches of such national chain stores as J. C. Penny Company, Kroger, A & P, National Tea, Montgomery Ward & Company and Sears Roebuck & Company.
Among leading manufacturing plants within the city are the Fashion-Hilt Shoe Company, the Johnson Press Company, the Brockton Heel Company and the Morton Printing Company.
The city has two banks which, in 1954, had savings deposits totaling $624,936.41.
Only newspaper of the county seat is the Leader, which in 1954 had a circulation of 4,770.
Located ninety-two miles southwest of Chicago in the midst of a rich farming area, Pontiac is served by the Illinois Central, the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio, and the Wabash railroads, as well as by US 66 and state highways 116 and 23.
This city is the only community of Pontiac Township which in 1950 had a total population of 9,906. Parts of the township were annexed to Pontiac city in 1942 and 1946.
[This is Livingston County, Illinois by: John Drury, The Loree Co., Chicago, Illinois (1955)]

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