Maroa, IL

Maroa is a Macon County city with a name borrowed from the Maroa people and a town plan shaped by the prairie highway. The first settlers arrived in the township in 1839, the city was established in 1854, and State Route 51 now runs along its western side between Clinton and Forsyth. Lake Fork's headwaters pass through the northern part of town, while the old downtown and historic homes give the place more than a through-road identity. Maroa is central Illinois in a neat little bundle: corn-belt ground, a north-south route, and a name that reaches back before the city was laid out.