National
Road
Association
Of
Illinois
National
Road
Association
Of
Illinois
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Effingham
Dating from 1853, this community is particularly interesting from a transportation perspective. Not only does it sit astride the National Road, over the successive decades it has become a transportation crossroads for interstate highways and railroads, including the Illinois Central. Two theories exist as to how Effingham got its name. In the first, the community was named for an investor in the Illinois Central railroad. The second has the town named in honor of Lord Effingham, a British noble, who resigned his military commission rather than fight against the colonies during the Revolutionary War.
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