Editing Towanda, Illinois (section)

===Original design===
Central Illinois towns of the 1830s, such as Bloomington, Lexington, Leroy and Pontiac, were usually built around a central square. In contrast, most towns of the 1850s, like Towanda, were oriented toward the railroad tracks. In the case of Towanda a diagonal main street was established parallel to the railroad, with the main building lots on only one side; the effect was to have the commercial establishments look across the street toward the tracks.<ref>''McLean County Combined Indexed Atlases, 1856 - 1914'' (Bloomington: McLean County Historical Society and McLean County Genealogical Society, 2006) p. 108.</ref> This was a common design in newly established towns along the Chicago and Alton Railroad and may be found, with slight variations, in places like Dwight, Gardner, Odell and McLean; Fell's town of Normal, established at the same time as Towanda, was to have had exactly the same arrangement; except that in Normal, the original street paralleling the railroad quickly lost its importance to the reverse side of the block. This standard town plan often left town designers with odd triangular pieces of land, where the diagonal street met with other streets which were aligned north–south or east–west. These triangles are often still in public hands. In the case of Towanda, Fell gave each of two triangular areas, one on either side of the tracks, to the town. On the original deed they were given the name "plaza", and both have always served the city as parks.<ref>Sublett, Michael D., William D. Walters, Jr. and Sutherd Modry, ''Commentary on a Cornbelt Countryside'' (Normal: Illinois State University Department of Geography-Geology, 1973) p. 119.</ref>