Midlothian, Illinois 5.16

Midlothian is a village in Cook County in the state of Illinois, United States. It is a southwestern suburb of Chicago.Early historyLike many southwest suburbs of Chicago in the 1800s and early 1900s, the area now known as the Village of Midlothian consisted of a few area farmers being surrounded by large and small endeavors alike as the industrial age began its exponential expansion process in the Bremen Township in Cook County, Illinois community.The Illinois Central Railroad race to the feds for helpBy 1854, the sprawling landscape comprising the township of Bremen had a trail of railroad track carrying both passengers and commodities between Chicago and Joliet on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.It had been a somewhat brutal battle for the Illinois Central Railroad over the decades, with Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln working hard to establish the presence of the Illinois Central Railroad on a State level until Douglas moved to the federal level. By 1850, Douglas was busy working on federally mandated development of transportation plans into law at a federal level for the benefit of the Illinois Central Railroad.According to the 1976 Bremen High School Bicentennial Book, there is evidence of existing plans to run the Illinois Central Railroad through the property that would eventually become the location of Bremen High School in 1953.