DSCF0230
taken by Elliott Johnson in May 2015
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)
BH Photo #323923
I was very pleasantly surprised to find this posting on your website. I am writing my story about Cantrall, Illinois and earlier had run across a fascinating poem, the subject of which is the Chinquapin Road and Bridge, by June Powers Reilly. She refers to it as Chinkapin, which i note is closer to the pronunciation we used when i was a kid around the area (40-60’s). The poem was written in the mid 1930’s. I met June, a graceful and gracious lady, on a few occasions when i was doing a college project on Lincoln.
Your information is valuable to me as i approach my goal of finishing my Cantrall story. In the meantime, i want to share with you June’s poem. I hope you find this as interesting as i do. I have been convinced for some time that the early settlers to Cantrall crossed the river at the Chinkapin location; and Mrs. Reilly’s poem reinforces that contention.
http://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/02/june-power-r...
Glad to see this finally get a posting. I had asked several years ago in the forum if anyone had pictures or knowledge of this. I stumbled across it years ago while going up the Sangamon River to Petersburg. Bing showed it in aerial view. I would guess that this was the highway bridge for RT29 (RT24 when first designated) until the 1930's wider bridge was built further east of this bridge. IL state maps first show a route out of Springfield towards this bridge in the 1924 version. Funny how an older bridge survives but a newer one was destroyed? Great find and great to have it here!!
A very nice find Elliott!
Looking forward to seeing the pics!!
im trying to upload pictures here but will have to go through flickr since i keep running into problems with the uploader on this site
Mr. Johnson: I'm the editor of SangamonLink.org, the online encyclopedia of the Sangamon County Historical Society. The SCHS is a registered non-profit, and SangamonLink is a noncommercial site. As I understand it, your Creative Commons license allows me to use one of your photos on SangamonLink, and I have done so. If you object to that for any reason, I'll certainly take it down. But either way, I wanted to let you know about the use, and -- presuming you have no objections -- to tell you I appreciate the opportunity to show SangamonLink readers the current (well, close to it) status of the Chinkapin Bridge. You can read SangamonLink's entry about the bridge here: https://sangamoncountyhistory.org/wp/?p=13874
Thanks again.
Mike Kienzler