Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis Railroad

The Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis Railroad (CP&StL) was a railroad in the U.S. state of Illinois that operated a main line between Pekin (near Peoria) and Madison (near St. Louis) via Springfield. Its property was sold at foreclosure to several new companies in the 1920s; the portion north of Springfield has since become the Illinois and Midland Railroad, while the remainder has been abandoned, except for a portion near St. Louis that is now owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway.

The earliest predecessor of the CP&StL was the Illinois River Railroad, chartered by the Illinois General Assembly in February 1853 to build a line from Jacksonville north-northeasterly to La Salle through the valley of the Illinois River. The line was opened from Virginia to Pekin in 1859, and in May 1864 the property was sold at foreclosure to the Peoria, Pekin and Jacksonville Railroad, which had been incorporated in June 1863 for this purpose. The company bought a line from Pekin to Peoria from the Peoria and Hannibal Railroad in May 1868, and in 1869 the road was extended southwest to the Toledo, Wabash and Western Railway (Wabash) at Jacksonville. The segment beyond Pekin acquired in 1868 was sold in November 1880 to the Peoria and Pekin Union Railway, a terminal railroad serving those cities.

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