Arcola, IL

Arcola's Broom Corn Festival turns an old industry into a September town ritual. Held the weekend after Labor Day, it includes a parade with the Lawn Rangers, a precision drill team that marches with brooms and lawn mowers. Libman and Thomas Monahan keep broom manufacturing tied to the city's working history, while downtown's original brick street, Raggedy Ann and Andy mural, and Johnny Gruelle museum make the center easy to read. Gruelle was born here and created the storybook characters; the June Friendship gathering at the Arcola Center brings collectors and local activities back to town.

ATTRritcharnd moskow from Toshi Station, USA / CC BY-SA 2.0

Arcola is a Douglas County railroad town laid out in 1855 along the Illinois Central, with U.S. 45 and Illinois 133 through town and Interstate 57 just west. Outside the city streets, Douglas County holds Illinois' largest Old Order Amish settlement, where homes, businesses, schools, horse-drawn buggies, and modern farms share the same rural roads. The place's daily character comes from those overlapping lines of work and memory: broom factories in town, a children's-literature story centered downtown, and a farming landscape that includes both mechanized and horse-drawn methods.