Editing Hudson, Illinois (section)

===Original town design===
The 1836 plan of the town of Hudson was interesting in several respects. First, most central Illinois towns of the 1830s were laid around a central public square, but Hudson had none.<ref>For example [[Bloomington, Illinois|Bloomington]], [[Lexington, Illinois|Lexington]], [[Le Roy, Illinois|Le Roy]], Concord ([[Danvers, Illinois|Danvers]]), and even Mt. Hope - the other colonial settlement - had central squares as part of their original plan.</ref> Second, the town of Hudson had both "in lots" - and "out lots". The "in lots" formed the core of Hudson and were standard blocks of lots like any other town. These were surrounded by a ring of "out lots", which were slightly larger, but still part of the original town plan. At Hudson the "out lots" differ in size. The tradition of in and out lots goes back for centuries in [[New England]], where farmers were reluctant to consign their livestock to locations far removed from the town center.

These "out lots" should not be confused with the far larger tracts of farming land that were also assigned to each settler. It is unclear why this out-of-date design should have been adopted at Hudson. The original town contained 30 blocks of "in lots", each of which contained eight lots; because each participant received several lots, the houses in the older part of town even today are often much more widely spaced than in other towns founded at the same date.<ref>''Combined Indexed Atlases of McLean County'' (Bloomington: McLean County Historical Society and McLean County Genealogical Society, 2006) p. 79.</ref> Broadway was designed as the main street of Hudson, and because of this was {{convert|120|ft|m}} wide, while other streets were only {{convert|80|ft|m}} wide.<ref>''Historical Encyclopedia'', 1908, p. 177.</ref> Eventually the "in lots" and the "out lots" came to be used in much the same way, as residential building sites.