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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
Tamaroa, 22.5 miles. Capital stock (1898), $1,250,000; bonded indebtedness, $690,000; total capitalization, $2,028,573.
WABASH COUNTY, situated in the southeast corner of the State; area 220 square miles. The county was carved out from Edwards in 1824, and the first court house built at Centerville, in May, 1826. Later, Mount Carinel was made the county-seat. (See Mount Carmel.) The "Wabash River drains the county on the east; other streams are the Bon Pas, Coffee and Crawfish Creeks. The surface is undulating with a fair growth of timber. The chief industries are the raising of live-stock and the cultivation of cereals. The wool-crop is likewise valuable. The county is crossed by the Louisville, Evansville & St. Louis and the Cairo and Vincennes Division of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroads. Population (1880), 4,945; (1890), 11,866; (1900), 12,583.
WABASH RAILROAD, an extensive railroad system connecting the cities of Detroit and Toledo, on the east, with Kansas City and Council Bluffs, on the west, with branches to Chicago, St. Louis, Quincy and Altamont, Ill., and to Keokuk and Des Moines, Iowa. The total mileage (1898) is 1,874.96 miles, of which 677.4 miles are in Illinois-all of the latter being the property of the company, besides 176.7 miles of yard-tracks, sidings and spurs. The company has trackage privileges over the Toledo, Peoria & Western (6.5 miles) between Elvaston and Keokuk bridge, and over the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (21.8 miles) between Camp Point and Quincy.-(HISTORY.) A considerable portion of this road in Illinois is constructed on the line upon which the Northern Cross Railroad was projected, in the ''internal improvement" scheme adopted in 1837, and embraces the only section of road completed under that scheme-that between the Illinois River and Springfield. (1) The construction of this section was begun by the State, May 11, 1837, the first rail laid, May 9, 1838, the road completed to Jacksonville, Jan. 1, 1840, and to Springfield, May 13, 1842. It was operated for a time by "mule power," but the income was insufficient to keep the line in repair and it was finally abandoned. In 1847 the line was sold for 121,100 to N. H. Ridgely and Thomas Mather of Springfield, and by them transferred to New York capitalists, who organized the Sangamon & Morgan Railroad Company, reconstructed the road from Springfield to Naples and opened it for business in 1849. (2) In 1853 two corporations were organ
