Downs, IL

Downs is a McLean County village southeast of Bloomington, with 1,201 residents in the 2020 census. It began as a trading post area known as Delta in 1829, with Kickapoo people using the surrounding country before the settler village took shape. The Indiana, Bloomington and Western Railway arrived in 1869, and the buildings were moved south to sit closer to the tracks; the town then became Priceville before taking the Downs name. U.S. 150 and I-74 now frame the village, with Bloomington about nine miles northwest and Kickapoo Creek along the western side. Tri-Valley schools are the center of the local routine, with elementary, middle, and high school buildings next to one another and the district offices on Washington Street.

ATTRSmuckers It has to be good / Public domain

The village also has the usual small-town mix of roads, local businesses, volunteer activities, and park gatherings, while the Bloomington-Normal area supplies larger shopping, work, and medical trips. Downs is a good example of a railroad village that has been folded into a metro area without becoming a suburb in name. Its identity still comes from the move toward the tracks, the creek, the schools, and the short drive to Bloomington.