Ashkum, IL

Ashkum is an Iroquois County village in Ashkum Township, named for a Potawatomi chief and laid out on Illinois Central Railroad land in 1856. The first village election came in 1861, when fewer than sixty votes were cast, and the new settlement grew as a rail stop amid corn and soybean fields. The Iroquois River forms the township's eastern boundary, while Chebanse, Clifton, Gilman, and Danforth sit along the surrounding farm-road network. The railroad gave Ashkum its original street grid and its reason for being.

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U.S. Route 45 passes through the village, Illinois Route 116 runs west toward Pontiac, and the I-57 interchange sits just south of town. Kankakee is about 21 miles north, Gilman about nine miles south, and the central Illinois farm belt continues in every direction. Ashkum's present-day map is a mix of grain fields, township roads, village services, and the old rail corridor, with larger shopping and employment centers reached along the highways. The Potawatomi name remains on signs and civic buildings, while the railroad-era layout keeps the village recognizable from the road.