COMPTON — The railroad is gone in Compton. So are the gas stations, grocery store, school, bank and skating rink.

But don’t feel bad; this eastern Lee County community still has a lot of things to be happy about — 150 of them, in fact.

The village with roots that grew out of, and outgrew, a grove celebrated its sesquicentennial anniversary this year, observing 150 years of perseverance and pride.

While commerce and population have declined in past 50 years, the community’s spirit continues to thrive in the village of around 250 residents along state Route 251 — many of whom can remember a day when that highway once was U.S. Route 51, before it moved to a freeway a couple of miles east in the mid-1980s.

The village held its sesquicentennial celebration July 19-20 with a craft show, kids activities, bags tournament, time capsule arrangement, cake walk, a display of local history, Lions Club lunch and dinner, live music and the dedication of one of its parks to late village president Donald “Doc” Swope.

The festivities brought around 500 people to the community for fun times and fond reflections of a small town that’s been a big part of their lives. Much of it was coordinated by the Compton Community Club, which was founded in 1946 and is the oldest such organization in Illinois. Its president, Emily Kofoid, grew up in Compton and still lives there, hoping that one day her own children, and others who will come to Compton, will appreciate the same things that the community gave to her as a child.

“I wanted that history to be shown to the kids,” Kofoid said. “It was about adults working toward an end goal. You don’t see that often. There were people working together, and the kids could see that there was history here.”

Kofoid’s uncle, Steve Gilmore, grew up on a farm a couple of miles north of town that has been in the family since 1835. Now the village’s fire chief, Gilmore is a source for much of the information on the village’s history, telling people of the days when there was once was a hospital in town and a golf course on the village’s east end, and how events could bring the townsfolk together.

“When I was a kid, we had Homecomings, and they were on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with a carnival and everything,” Gilmore said. “The Community Club would put that on, and they would get a lot of people to come. My parents went to church in Paw Paw, so we’d go over there to their Homecoming and they’d have a Ferris wheel, but we’d have a full-fledged carnival.”

Even out-of-towners have come to appreciate, and play a role in, the close-knit community. Neva and Randy Ikeler of Paw Paw are co-pastors of The Village House of Praise, the only church within village limits (the next nearest church, Immanuel Lutheran Church, is located 3 miles south of town and has held services since 1865). In addition, Neva serves on the Community Club board, and Randy is a volunteer fireman.

The Ikelers’ church had been the town’s Methodist Church until 2021, when it closed.

“We fell in love with the church,” Neva said. “We used to come over here and substitute doing the music there, and when we saw that the church was not going to be able to continue, we couldn’t bear the thought of that building just standing there disintegrating, so we went through the process to purchase the building, not having any idea what we were going to do with it. We fell in love with the community, too, and the people. The kids ride their bike up and down the streets, and people watch out for them. It’s just a neat community, and we felt a real connection.”

They’re not the only ones who feel that connection.

The 150th anniversary celebration was initially meant to be one day, but was extended to two days so that more people could see the displays of historical pictures, books and memorabilia that lined the tables in the church basement.

Those who dropped by enjoyed the trip down memory lane. People who hadn’t seen each other in years reconnected, and the displays evoked memories of their time in the cozy little community where kids could easily ride from one end of town to the other and not even wear out the baseball card in their spokes.

“When we first started talking about the different things that we were going to do, things were thrown out that we had done before,” Ikeler said. “Someone brought up an idea to get some memorabilia from people, and gather it in the basement of the church. I thought there would be just a few people that would bring things, but we had eight tables that were filled with photo albums and pictures, and old newspapers and articles. It was really neat when it got going how many people participated.”

From a trail to tracks

Before Compton, there was Melugin’s Grove, which was located a couple of miles north of town.

Zacharia T. Melugin settled in a large grove of trees along a Chicago-to-Galena stagecoach trail in 1834, approximately where Shaw and Richards roads meet. Melugin’s Grove grew to have a hotel and shops, but when the Chicago and Rock River Railroad (later named the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy) bypassed the grove in 1872, businesses and residents slowly followed the tracks, and three years later started the community of Compton, named for hotel owner Joel Compton.

Main Street once was the center of the community, with businesses located parallel to the railroad track, but that changed after a fire in 1906 destroyed the downtown. Businesses moved to Third Street and included a shoe shop, hardware store, bank, butcher shop, blacksmith, barber, hotel, and grocer. The town also had stockyards, but they closed during the Great Depression, which also took out the town’s only bank.

Dr. A.W. Chandler opened the town’s hospital in 1906 and operated it for nine years before moving to Rochelle and establishing one there (now Rochelle Community Hospital). Later operated by Dr. C.G. Poole, Compton’s hospital closed in the early 1940s and became apartments, which still stand today.

One of Compton’s memorable attractions was a boxcar diner along the highway that was part of the village for nearly 70 years. The diminutive diner was bought and brought to town in 1934 by Granville “Duck” Miller, a former bootlegger during Prohibition. The boxcar, which sat next to the current Village Hall, is no longer there, but during its time it took on several names before finally closing in the 1990s, by which time the exterior had been painted similar to an Amtrak rail car: in silver, red, white and blue.

Also on the highway, Jerry’s Tap, the town’s only bar, with a history dating to 1928 when Arthur Archer started a restaurant, service station and garage there. The garage and service station are gone, but people can still top off their “tanks” with a brew or two.

The Cave was another one of Compton’s bars, and the long building it was once in has a history that stretches back to the village’s earliest days. When Compton began, the building that had been located in Melugin’s Grove was cut in half and hauled on logs and horses to the new community, where it was reassembled. The building now houses apartments.

Compton’s school, which once had high school courses from 1902-49, closed in 1976 and has since been razed.

Firefighting in Compton began with an all-volunteer fire department in 1936, and the Compton Fire Protection District was formed in 1952. The first three Homecomings in town from 1940-42 helped raise money for the town’s first fire truck. A new fire station on the southwest edge of town is under construction and scheduled to open early next year.

In his role as fire chief, Gilmore has come to know many in the community, seeing them during moments both happy and sad — and he’s also seen their resolve when it comes to helping their fellow community members.

“We had a house fire here this summer where people had moved here from Paw Paw less than a year ago, and it was a total loss,” Gilmore said. “They started asking for donations, and I asked Candy to put a message out for furniture, and they ended up with everything they needed in one day. Doing stuff like that, it’s always been that way for as long as I can remember.”

Celebration time

During the 150th anniversary celebration, Gilmore unveiled the new Doc Swope Memorial Park sign. He recalls Swope, who died in 2024, as someone who would go out of his way, and beyond his responsibilities as village president, to make sure residents were alright.

“People like that taught people how to care for the people in town,” Gilmore said. “For a long time, we had trouble getting water bills paid, and when Doc was village president, he’d go up to the house and ask them why they were behind. He’d try to figure out how they can get the bill paid. I thought that was a good thing, and not to just send a letter saying we’re going to shut you off. There are a lot of good people in Compton.”

As Compton marked its 150th year, it wasn’t just the photos spread across church tables or yellowed newspaper clippings that stood out, it was the way people leaned in to point, to remember, to say, “I knew them.” Today, neighbors still glance out their windows and know when something’s off. It’s an unspoken network of concern, an everyday kindness that didn’t make the history books, but probably should have.

“You could live in the city and have someone next door to you, and you wouldn’t even know them, or if they were well or not,” Ikeler said. “Here, people know their next door neighbor well enough that they’ll think, ‘Their car hasn’t moved,’ or ‘I haven’t seen them,’ and they’re willing to jump in and help. That’s the thing about a small town I like.”

That closeness is what keeps people like Kofoid rooted here, even when they may have pulled up those roots — and put them back down.

“The community and people who live here make it a good place to live,” she said, recalling the time she moved away before returning to Compton. “I wanted to leave as soon as possible, and when I did leave I realized that I was missing out on a lot of being with people who live here that make the community what it is, and volunteer their time. Family’s a big part of it, and there’s a lot of family here.”