South Pekin, IL

South Pekin is a Tazewell County village five miles south of Pekin, where the 2020 census counted 996 residents. It occupies Sections 27 and 34 of Cincinnati Township, formed in 1850, in an area once called McFadden Flats. The Chicago and North Western Railroad chose the site for a water, refueling, and repair station in 1912. Al Casper's family arrived on Christmas Day that year, and later railroad workers lived in boxcars that were moved from the tracks onto a siding. Some cars were eventually dragged onto village lots and joined into houses. South Pekin incorporated on April 12, 1917.

The railroad still gives South Pekin its strongest local story, even after the yards and passenger trains faded. South Pekin School District 137 and Pekin Community High School District 303 connect the village to the wider education map, while the Golden Voice Recording studio made the village part of central Illinois's music history. The studio operated from a South Pekin basement and became associated with recordings by artists including Styx, Head East, and Dan Fogelberg. South Pekin's map joins a former rail terminal, a boxcar-built neighborhood, a school system, and a small recording scene in the farmland south of Pekin.