Madison, IL

Madison is a Metro East city spread across Madison and St. Clair counties, close to St. Louis and the Mississippi corridor. The central city area sits among Granite City and Venice, and city government still handles police, fire, public works, parks, permits, and neighborhood business through City Hall on Madison Avenue. Its map is transportation-minded: the river, major roads, rail connections, and the older industrial communities around the confluence all sit close together.

ATTRDavid Hinkson, http://www.trailnet.org/ / Public domain

Two landmarks give Madison a particularly specific rhythm. World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway runs major NASCAR, IndyCar, and NHRA weekends on Raceway Boulevard, tying the city to a regional motorsports calendar. The area’s Bulgarian Orthodox story reaches back to 1907, when the first Bulgarian parish in America was established in Madison. Race weekends bring a different kind of crowd than church services and neighborhood meetings, but all three belong to the same compact river-edge city. Madison’s identity is part working suburb, part industrial corridor, and part place with an unexpectedly deep immigrant religious history.