Time Was

During the holidays the famous Charles Dickens story, a Christmas Carol is everywhere, with everyone and his brother playing the role of Scrooge. We see the familiar Bob Cratchit in jeopardy of losing his job, and then what was to become of his poor family.
They would have to be sent to the Poor House. But that was in England, surely in this country there was no such institution. Wrong, not only was there a Poor House, known locally as the Poor Farm, but it continued operation well into the 20th century.

Today we travel by train to the small hamlet known as Ritchey, just across the river from Custer Park. There are only two ways to get there from Braidwood.
We could travel along the Kankakee Road until we got to Kankakee, then cross on the bridge, then back west and north, or we could go to Wilmington, cross the river, then south along an old Indian trail known as the Kankakee Road. Either way, once we got there, there was very little there. But that would soon change. Let's start out in December of 1878.

When the railroad came through Wilmington in 1854 it did more than give our citizens a way to get to Chicago or St. Louis, it made Wilmington a “jumping off” place.
That is to say those who were looking to get away from the big city to sell their wares to a more rural unsuspecting community found Wilmington a perfect place. Whether it was lightning rod salesmen, or faith healers - Wilmington was the place. Today let's look at one such case.

The name is not indicative of the town. It is not beautiful and sparkly, it does not shine in the sun, and worst of all there never were any real diamonds there. But if we are talking about black diamonds then it is aptly named. Set the way back machine for 1873 for the birth of Diamond.
Unlike Braidwood, which was laid out haphazardly as the coal shafts were sunk; Diamond, like Coal City, was laid out by the coal companies.