Editing Cooksville, Illinois (section)

==History==
===Founding===
Cooksville was laid out under the name "Kochsville" on December 4, 1882, by Frederick Wilhelm Koch (1829 – 1900).<ref>''Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of McLean County'' (Chicago: Munsell, 1908. p. 902.</ref> Within a year of its founding the name was changed to Cooksville. Koch was a [[Bloomington, Illinois|Bloomington]] real estate dealer.<ref>Jacob L. Hasbrouck, ''History of McLean County'' (Indianapolis and Topeka: Historical Publishing Company, 1924) p. 89.</ref> He was born in [[Westphalia]], in what is now [[Germany]], and arrived in the United States on November 6, 1854. Koch was in Bloomington by 1860. He sold thirty or forty lots near his home in west Bloomington, and this neighborhood soon became known as Kochsville, giving Koch the distinction of having two [[McLean County, Illinois|McLean County]] places named in his honor.<ref>''Historical Encyclopedia'', 1908, p.686.</ref> Cooksville was founded when the Clinton, Bloomington and Northeastern Railroad was finished from [[Colfax, Illinois|Colfax]] to Bloomington; in 1880 the part of the railroad from [[Kankakee, Illinois|Kankakee]] to Colfax had been finished, resulting in the 1880 founding of [[Cropsey, Illinois|Cropsey]], [[Anchor, Illinois|Anchor]], and [[Colfax, Illinois|Colfax]]; but the remainder of the railroad was delayed for two years. The railroad was soon taken over by the [[Illinois Central]] and was sometimes known as the Bloomer Line. After requests for the grain elevators to join Alliance Grain, operator of the Bloomer Line, were denied, the tracks from Colfax to Cooksville were removed. This left road transportation as the only available method for grain.

===Design and growth===
Cooksville was incorporated in December 1901. The population of the village peaked in 1910 with 332 people. The design of the original town of Cooksville was a rectangle north of the tracks with the southern blocks slightly truncated because the railroad did not run exactly east and west. The original town contained about 55 lots. The depot was on the north side of the tracks and the two early elevators on the south side. Soon small additions were laid out south of the tracks and on the east side of the original town.<ref>''Combined Indexed Atlas, 1856–1914, McLean County, Illinois'' (Bloomington: McLean County Historical Society and McLean County Genealogical Society, 2006)  P.59.</ref> In 1883 William G. Darnell established the first [[grain elevator]] in Cooksville.<ref>''Historical Encyclopedia'', 1908, p. 996.</ref> Harvey W. Crumbacker also moved to the town in 1883. He established a hardware store and in 1902 built a two-story brick building in the town.<ref>''Historical Encyclopedia'', 1908, p.990.</ref>