Piper City, Illinois
Encyclopedia
Piper City is a village in Ford County, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The population was 826 at the 2010 census.

Geography

Piper City is located at 40°45′24"N 88°11′22"W (40.756749, -88.189560).

According to the United States Census Bureau
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...

, the village has a total area of 0.6 square miles (1.6 km²), all of it land.

History

Piper City was laid out in 1867 for Samuel Cross of New York and Dr. William A. Piper (5 March 1820 – 6 July 1896) of Philadelphia. The original plat was named Brenton. It was a station on the Toledo Peoria and Western Railroad, which had been completed ten years earlier. The present name of the town, which was adapted soon after the town was founded, comes from Piper who had extensive land holdings in the area. Cross lived briefly in the township, but little is known of his life. An earlier railroad siding and grain station known as Brenton had been established two miles to the east of the eventual location of the town. The new station was therefore briefly known as New Brenton. The Original Town lay on both sides of the railroad and the streets were aligned with the railroad, which was angled slightly away from true north-south. John Allen and W. C. Jones opened the first store in Piper City the summer of 1867. A second store called Piper, Montelius and Company was operated by J.A. Montelius, Piper’s nephew, but it is unclear if Piper was actually a resident in the new town. The first Post Office was in the home of John R. Lewis, who had been land agent for the Illinois Central Railroad
Illinois Central Railroad
The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, is a railroad in the central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois with New Orleans, Louisiana and Birmingham, Alabama. A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa...

. A Presbyterian Church was established in 1869, a Catholic church in 1880 and a Methodist church in 1881 In 1870 Montelius established a bank and was for many years was the leading citizen of Piper City In 1887 B.W. Kensey began the Piper City Journal. In 1924, when the people of Piper City learned that a new highway, soon to be known as U.S. 24, would pass a quarter mile north of the town, a delegation was sent to the governor to protest. They were unsuccessful. The town has been an important grain shipping point for the rich agricultural land of the pan handle of Ford County.

Demographics

As of the census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

of 2000, there were 781 people, 307 households, and 210 families residing in the village. The population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

 was 1,409.2 people per square mile (548.3/km²). There were 332 housing units at an average density of 599.0 per square mile (233.1/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 96.67% White, 0.13% African American, 0.38% Native American, 0.90% Asian, 0.51% from other races
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...

, and 1.41% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.54% of the population.

There were 307 households out of which 29.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.0% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 living together, 8.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.3% were non-families. 29.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 20.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 3.01.

In the village the population was spread out with 25.4% under the age of 18, 6.5% from 18 to 24, 23.0% from 25 to 44, 22.8% from 45 to 64, and 22.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females there were 86.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 78.3 males.

The median income for a household in the village was $36,250, and the median income for a family was $40,278. Males had a median income of $33,393 versus $21,750 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...

 for the village was $19,393. About 7.1% of families and 10.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.6% of those under age 18 and 7.8% of those age 65 or over.
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