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Community of Chenoa History
McLean County, Illinois

(Transcribed by: Teri Moncelle Colglazier)

J. B. Lenny and his brother-in-law, John Bush, both erected buildings on the site of Chenoa [in Chenoa Township] about 1854-56. The town was incorporated in 1864 and Lenney was first president. In 1837 it was organized under the general law as a city and C. R. Snyder became first mayor. The city had a steady if not rapid growth, with many churches, lodges and a newpaper, now the Clippertimes, edited by W. H. Hawthorne. In 1917, the city of Chenoa adopted the commission form of government, with W. A. Chapman as first mayor and Jacob Ballbach, B. F. Elfrink, L. L. Silliman and T. W. Weatherwax, commissioners. The population of Chenoa city is 1,325. ["Official souvenir program, McLean County Centennial, Aug. 27, 28, 30, 1930" by: McLean County Illinois Centennial Souvenir Program Committee, Harold Lang and Eugene Funk] A manufacturing as well as trading center, the incorporated city of Chenoa has a present population of 1,452. Here are a number of canning factories and machine shops as well as a shuffleboard plant. The city is located twenty-five miles north of Bloomington on US 66, main highway of Illinois. It is also on the Illinois Central and Toledo, Peoria & Western railroads. Chenoa was surveyed and platted in 1856 by Matthew T. Scott, who came from Kentucky and who named it after an Indian chieftain of his native state. A year before Scott came, however, a general emporium, long known as the Farmers' Store, was built here by J. B. Lenney and his brother-in-law, John Bush, Jr. Today, Chenoa city is the principal community of Chenoa Township, which has a total population of 2,032. One of the earliest settlers of the township was Joseph Graham. [This is McLean County, Illinois by: John Drury, The Loree Co., Chicago, Illinois (1955)]

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