[4] The land on which Towanda stands was first entered by Charles Badeau who had graduated from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, in 1840, and was employed as the assistant to the chief engineer of what was then the Alton and Springfield Railroad.

[5] Because in Illinois at that time it was illegal for railroads or their officials to establish new towns, much of the land was then transferred to two McLean County real estate developers, Jesse W. Fell (1808 – 1887) and Charles W. Holder (1819 - 1900).

[6] Fell, a native of Chester County in southeastern Pennsylvania, was a widely known land dealer in central Illinois who played a major role in founding many towns in the region, including Clinton, Dwight, Normal, and Pontiac, and who was the driving force behind the establishment of the school that would become Illinois State University.

[7] Holder was linked with Fell in many of his town founding schemes including Normal, Illinois, and Larchwood in Lyon County, Iowa; the McLean County town of Holder is named in his honor.

Roadnight built the first warehouse in Towanda; he settled in Bloomington, had a farm in Dwight, and in 1858 later became treasurer of what was then the Chicago and Alton Railroad.

[11] This was a common design in newly established towns along the Chicago and Alton Railroad and may be found, with slight variations, in places like Dwight, Gardner, Odell and McLean; Fell's town of Normal, established at the same time as Towanda, was to have had exactly the same arrangement; except that in Normal, the original street paralleling the railroad quickly lost its importance to the reverse side of the block.

In the case of Towanda, Fell gave each of two triangular areas, one on either side of the tracks, to the town.

[13] The largest building was a two-story structure built by Charles Roadnight, which was 50 by 100 feet (15 by 30 m); the first floor was used for stores and the second as a meeting room.

A group of local women took exception to the amount of money their menfolk were spending on whiskey.

They then marched into the Buena Vista smashing bottles, threatening the barman, and hurling whatever they could find through the tavern windows.

[16] A series of photographs taken in the 1870s give a striking view of early Towanda town.

The majority of the homes are wooden I-cottages: single story, or story-and-a-half, wood frame dwellings with a symmetrical façade.

In 1905, a large part of the downtown area burned, and in 1917 the original railroad station went up in flames.

[18] Still, Towanda remained in the shadow of its larger neighbors to the south, Normal and Bloomington, and was always smaller than Lexington, the next town north on the stagecoach road and the Chicago and Alton Railroad line, which generally paralleled each other between Chicago and Springfield.

Trains were essential to the development of the town, but traffic was never heavy; in 1887, only one southbound and one northbound freight stopped at Towanda.

[20] This exhibit extends from the intersection of Historic Route 66 and Jefferson Street near the I-55 interchange to a point at the southern tip of town just past an unnamed pond off Historic Route 66 (at 40.557656, -88.908876), where there is a rest stop and parking area for catfish and bass fishing in the pond.

The stretch of the parkway where the exhibit was erected is a subset of the overall Towanda Trail, which includes a three-flagpole garden on the northeast corner of Jefferson Street and Route 66, several picnic areas along the length of the trail, scattered birdhouses, and intermittent landscaped areas extending from the Money Creek Bridge to the south end of the pond.

An exceptional collection of scanned documents and images were added to the project's website as a result.

wind speeds 207-260 mph) tornado 22.2 miles (35.7 km) away from the Towanda village center that injured 2 people and caused between $500,000 and $5,000,000 in damages.

On July 4, a parade goes through Towanda and is considered a big event in McLean County.

Additionally, there is a flea market and the two parks where vendors come from all around the United States to sell their antiques and other items.