| Galton, Illinois | |
|---|---|
| Unincorporated community | |
  Galton, Illinois  Galton, Illinois | |
| Coordinates: 39°44′22″N88°18′01″W / 39.73944°N 88.30028°W Coordinates: 39°44′22″N88°18′01″W / 39.73944°N 88.30028°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Illinois |
| County | Douglas |
| Elevation | 650 ft (200 m) |
| Time zone | Central (CST) (UTC-6) |
| • Summer (DST) | CDT (UTC-5) |
| Area code(s) | 217 |
| GNIS feature ID | 408860 [1] |
Galton is an unincorporated community in Douglas County, Illinois, United States. Galton is located on U.S. Route 45, 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Arcola.
Douglas County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 19,980. The county seat is Tuscola.
Illinois is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It has the fifth largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth largest population, and the 25th largest land area of all U.S. states. Illinois is often noted as a microcosm of the entire United States. With Chicago in northeastern Illinois, small industrial cities and immense agricultural productivity in the north and center of the state, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a diverse economic base, and is a major transportation hub. Chicagoland, Chicago's metropolitan area, encompasses over 65% of the state's population. The Port of Chicago connects the state to international ports via two main routes: from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois Waterway to the Illinois River. The Mississippi River, the Ohio River, and the Wabash River form parts of the boundaries of Illinois. For decades, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has been ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and, through the 1980s, in politics.
U.S. Route 45 is a major north–south United States highway and a border-to-border route, from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. A sign at the highway's northern terminus notes the total distance as 1,300 miles (2,100 km).
The community was named after Douglas Galton, [2] a British actuary who visited Illinois several times to examine the books of the Illinois Central Railroad on behalf of Dutch and British investors. In 1883, a post office was established. [3]
The Illinois Central Railroad, sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, was a railroad in the central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama. A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa (1870). There was a significant branch to Omaha, Nebraska (1899), west of Fort Dodge, Iowa, and another branch reaching Sioux Falls, South Dakota (1877), starting from Cherokee, Iowa. The Sioux Falls branch has been abandoned in its entirety.
