This post contains an article dated September 9, 1941 and notes a few details about Marion and the regions past. First is the potential sale of the Marion Waterworks. Secondly is the originally planned routing of Interstate 57 which was to avoid Marion altogether and swing through Centralia and Carbondale instead. Can you imagine how different Marion’s economy would be without the interstate being here? Third, the last part of this article deals with the paving of Boyton Street, which may seem inconsequential, but how would you get from Market to Court before it was there?
It’s hard to believe, at this writing in September of 2013, with street and road construction occurring on a daily basis that at one time the city only had one through street, W. College, in the section of town between S. Market and S. Court Streets. The next available crossing from Market to Route 37 was all the way south, 5 miles, to Hudgens Road. I can only imagine how excited residents were in those days to see this project finally coming to completion.
“No important business was acted on at the regular meeting of the city council last night. Mr. Richards, a representative of De Leuw and Company, municipal engineers who have been employed by Lansford and Company of Chicago to make a survey and appraisal of the Marion Waterworks, appeared briefly before the meeting. He is starting his survey and inventory today. Lansford and Company is the organization that has the contract with the city to negotiate for the purchase of the water company. Final details of the purchase are beginning to take shape and it is felt that such a transaction would be one of the best steps taken in recent years by the council.
Mayor Crisp informed the council that present plans for the four-lane cross-country highway to be constructed soon call for it to follow State Route 37 down to Salem, then cut cross to Centralia and down through Carbondale to Cairo. The mayor informed the council that he had learned from Mayor Borden of Mt. Vernon that the State Highway Department at Springfield had granted the towns south of Salem on 37 a hearing on Tuesday, September 16 and suggested that Marion should be represented at this conference. He pointed out the since the traffic from Marion to Benton and Mt. Vernon was notoriously the heaviest in Southern Illinois, and that since such a highway through Marion would be indeed beneficial to the city, it would be worthwhile for the city to bend every effort to get the four-lane road rerouted all the way down Rout 37 to Cairo. The council took no action.
Although last night’s meeting saw no important business transacted, the meeting next Monday night will be highly important in that the final approval of the paving of Boyton Street from South Court to South Market is scheduled to come up. Some time ago the council voted to pave this street, making in an arterial city cross street, the only improved one from Market to Court between College Street and the Hudgens road. At that time they appropriated money from the motor fuel fund to complete this project. Plans have been going ahead and to date $1,200 has been spent for the necessary engineering and all is in readiness for the council’s final approval to order the contract.
Residents of the southeast part of town have been counting heavily on this outlet to Route 37 without having to drive all the way to the square and fight heavy traffic to get to the Country Club or points south, and will be greatly pleased when they know the laying of a 40 foot paving on Boyton Street is underway. This improvement also ties in with a scheduled black topping of South Market to Boyton and an even greater improvement of the drainage system of that part of town. Much has been done by the council already to alleviate the bad drainage system and make the dirt street in that area passable in the rainy season and the completion of the paving on Boyton will be a matter for all to take great civic pride in.”
(Article extracted from the Marion Evening Post, September 9, 1941)