Editing De Land, Illinois (section)

==History==

De Land was founded in 1873 by Thomas E. Bondurant. who had it laid out as an answer to the needs of the local farmers for a place from which to ship their grain.<ref name="The Biggest Little Town">{{Cite book |last=Paugh |first=Myrta |url=https://libsysdigi.library.illinois.edu/oca/Books2008-06/biggestlittletow00paug/biggestlittletow00paug.pdf |title=The Biggest Little Town |year=1973 |isbn=978-0282235437}}</ref> Before officially being named De Land, the town was known as "Tom's Town" in honor of Thomas Bondurant.<ref name="The Biggest Little Town"/> The origination of the name De Land has disputed sources, most tracing back to either James DeLand, who helped bring the railroad to the area in 1872, or French DeLand, a surveyor who is said to have laid out the town.<ref name="The Biggest Little Town"/> The village was incorporated in 1899.<ref name="The Biggest Little Town"/>

In 1912 a [[Carnegie libraries|Carnegie Library]] was opened in De Land with $8,000 provided by the [[Carnegie Corporation of New York]], after a group of citizens including Tom McMillen, a local bank employee, and Lucy Thornton, the president of the Women's Club, raised public support for the project.<ref name="The Biggest Little Town"/> The original library building was closed in 2009 and all books and materials were moved to a building nearby.

In 2002, the De Land board of trustees acknowledged that it had passed a [[sundown town]] ordinance decades earlier.<ref>{{cite book|first=James W.|last=Loewen|authorlink=James W. Loewen|title=Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism|location=New York City|publisher=[[The New Press]]|date=2005|isbn=978-1-62097-454-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=abhIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT81|via=Google Books|page=100|quote=Most of these towns, especially in the Midwest, were not close to any black population concentration and would not have confronted any inundation by African Americans had they failed to pass an ordinance. Consider De Land, for instance, a small village in central Illinois, population 475 in 2000. Present and former members of the De Land board of trustees agreed in 2002 that it had passed such an ordinance decades ago.}}</ref>