[3] The community is located northwest across the railroad tracks along Illinois Route 54 at Dauphin Street.

However, the exact center of Illinois is about eight miles southwest of Chestnut, and on the other side of the town of Mount Pulaski, at 89°18.4'W 40°0.8'N.

Two years prior, a town had been laid out, platted, and surveyed on the same section by William M. Allen and S. Linn Beidler.

William H. Daniels soon after started a blacksmith shop, George Lakin a drug store, and I. J. Michener erected an elevator in 1873.

Among non-Hispanics this includes 233 White, 1 Native American, 3 Asian, 2 of two or more races, and 7 Hispanic or Latino.