Glen Carbon

Early maps show Glen Carbon's Main Street as a major trail, possibly even part of the Goshen Trail. Trails and roads brought horses and wagons, and the earliest known business along the route through the Judy Creek valley was a blacksmith shop. A blacksmith shop appears on an 1873 map, and William Yanda, a blacksmith from Austria, had one there as early as 1857. His son Frank also became a blacksmith and continued the family trade. An 1880s tintype picture of the trail through Glen Carbon shows both a blacksmith shop and a wheelwright shop, the business of a Mr. Franek. In November 1909, the Madison Coal Corporation deeded ground to the village for a new municipal building to include a fire engine house, city hall, and city jail. The Oswald Brothers of Alhambra were the low bidder, and the building was completed by December 1910 for $6000. Throughout the village, rows of identical or similar dwellings were likely company houses built by either the St. Louis Press Brick Company or the Madison Coal Company, including a row on Main Street built by the Madison Coal Corporation and other company row houses in several parts of the village.

Glen Carbon, Illinois · United States