Woodhull, IL

Woodhull is a village in Henry County, in western Illinois farm country near the Quad Cities and Galesburg. The 2020 census counted 754 residents. Maxwell Woodhull surveyed and laid out the village on September 30, 1857, and the community incorporated in 1870. Before that, the settlement had been called Heathland and then Leoti. The name changes sit alongside a village shaped by railroads, fields, and the small industries that grew around them.

The American Central Railroad, later part of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy system, reached Woodhull in 1868-69. A local factory shipped more broom corn than any other place in the country in 1871 and 1872, and a brickyard followed in the 1880s. Illinois Route 17 and Interstate 74 later replaced the railroad as the main travel references, with I-74's Exit 32 north of town. AlWood Community Unit School District 225 still brings students together from Woodhull and neighboring Alpha. The village's story runs from broom corn and brick to highways and a school district that serves the same wide farm country.