Princeville, IL

Princeville is a Peoria County village on the prairie northwest of Peoria. The 2020 census counted 1,728 residents, and the village sits inside the Peoria metropolitan orbit without losing its own town-center feel. The township carries the name of Daniel Prince, an early settler, while William C. Stevens laid out the village in 1837. The Peoria and Rock Island railroad later put Princeville on a direct line through the county.

ATTRRobert Haugland / CC BY-SA 4.0

These days, the old rail corridor has a second life as the Rock Island Trail, which runs through the village and gives the prairie landscape a steady stream of walkers and cyclists. Princeville District 326 keeps the school system close to the center of town, and local businesses still serve the farms and roads around it. The village has the kind of map where the past is easy to spot: an old railroad alignment, a main street shaped by early commerce, and a modern trail following the route that once brought trains into the middle of the fields.