Hanna City, IL

Hanna City is a Peoria County village on the western side of the Peoria metropolitan area. The 2020 census counted 1,253 residents. Farmington Road and the old Peoria-Farmington Railroad line run through the village's working map, while Farmington Central Community Unit School District 265 serves local students. The surrounding landscape is still farm country, but the village's identity was shaped by the coal under it and by the rail line that connected it to Peoria and Farmington.

William Hanna, president of the Peoria-Farmington Railroad, gave the village its name when it was founded in 1882. The first coal mine opened the next year, and mining remained part of Hanna City's economy until the last operation closed in 1938. That history is easy to miss in a place now organized around homes, village services, school traffic, and farm roads. The village recreation center also draws students from nearby communities for junior-high dances, adding a current gathering place to an old rail-and-coal story.