Forgottonia

Forgottonia (also spelled Forgotonia) is the name given to a fourteen-county region in Western Illinois in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This geographic region forms the distinctive western bulge of Illinois that is roughly equivalent to "The Tract", the Illinois portion of the Military Tract of 1812, along and west of the Fourth Principal Meridian (see Principal meridian). Since this wedge-shaped region lies between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, it has historically been isolated (river bridge access) from the eastern portion of Central Illinois.

The name Forgottonia was created by Jack Horn, son of civically minded Coca-Cola regional bottler Frank “Pappy” Horn; John Armstrong, Macomb Chamber of Commerce Board Member; and Neil Gamm, a Western Illinois University theatre student and a graduate of VIT (Vermont-Ipava-Table Grove) High School. The initiative grew from frustration among the citizens and public officials of western Illinois due to a perceived lack of support for regional transportation projects. Federal funding for a highway from Chicago to Kansas City routed through the heart of western Illinois was defeated by the U.S. Congress (1955, 1968, 1972), passenger rail service from Quincy and Macomb to Chicago was dropped, and Carthage College packed up and moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin in 1964. The term Forgottonia was used by Congressman Dick Durbin, who represented the southern portion of the region, in stump speeches in the early 1980s. He expanded the definition to include communications (educational television, fiber-optic routes, etc.) and infrastructure services (private and public). The name is less popular today, but the exodus of population and industries has continued. Some counties in this region have reached federal poverty levels, for the first time in the state's history.

In the 1970s, there were five Illinois River highway bridge crossings south of Peoria (Havana, Beardstown, Meredosia, Florence, and Hardin), plus two free Illinois River ferries at Kampsville, and Brussels. The Valley City Eagle bridge for the Central Illinois Expressway in the southern section of the region was not completed until the late 1980s. See Illinois River bridges. The Mississippi River highways bridges at that time were Toll bridges with a few exceptions, and owned by railroads or cities along the river.

A Chicago–Kansas City Expressway was planned in the 1950s and 1960s from Chicago to Kansas City, Missouri via Peoria, Macomb, and Quincy, roughly following U.S. Route 24 and the Santa Fe Railroad right-of-ways with a western connection to the Kansas Turnpike completed in October 20, 1956. The highway was studied and route corridors developed, but the expressway was never built. The major Chicago to Kansas City railroads in the region were against potential competing truck routes and Missouri DOT chose to not support the route in 1950s.

An Avenue of the Saints (Saint Paul, MN – St. Louis, MO) expressway was proposed in 1955 as part of Interstate Highway System. It would have followed U.S. Route 61 from Saint Paul through La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Dubuque, Iowa, to Davenport, Iowa, and then followed U.S. Route 67 from Davenport through western Illinois (Monmouth, Macomb, Beardstown, Jacksonville, Alton) crossing a new Clark Bridge at Alton to St. Louis. Missouri. Barge lines, operating along the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, objected to competing truck routes. This route was not selected in 1956.

In 1970, the west-central region of Illinois was one of the few areas in the United States without a PBS station. Fringes of this region were served from PBS stations outside the region or state: WILL-TV in Urbana; WTVP in Peoria; and KIIN in West Branch, Iowa. Cable television networks in north-central Illinois communities and Macomb carried Iowa Public Television or WTVP PBS programming to their residents.