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13 unusual facts about Elgin


141st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment

The 141st Illinois Infantry was organized at Elgin, Illinois, and mustered into Federal service on June 16, 1864, for a one-hundred-day enlistment.

Elgin-Butler Brick Company

The town's population reached about 150 and the company also mined clay from a site now in the Zilker Park soccer fields in Austin.

Elgin, Oregon

By 1887 Elgin had general stores, a livery, a hotel, and a church, as well as a nearby sawmill, which continues as a more modern Boise Cascade mill.

Elgin, Western Cape

Grabouw was created on the farm Grietjiesgat acquired on 22 November 1856 by Wilhelm Langschmidt, who named the place after Grabow, the village of his birth in Germany.

In 1966, on Applethwaite farm, Edmond Lombardi created and introduced to the market a 100% apple-juice beverage, free of additives and preservatives, known as Appletiser.

Elgin's Regiment of Fencible Infantry

Major Thomas, Earl of Elgin, from the 12th Foot was Colonel of this fencible regiment with the permanent army rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway

The acquisition by CN of the former Illinois Central and Elgin, Joliet and Eastern railroads will enable cargo to bypass the congested railway switching system in Chicago proper and reach Memphis and New Orleans within 96 hours of a ship docking at Prince Rupert.

Hogmanay

The word is first recorded in 1604 in the Elgin Records as hagmonay (delatit to haue been singand hagmonayis on Satirday) and again in 1692 in an entry of the Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, "It is ordinary among some plebeians in the South of Scotland to go about from door to door upon New-years Eve, crying Hagmane".

Osco Drug

In 1970 working with Kodak, Osco built a photofinishing lab from scratch in Elgin, Illinois.

Savanna Dry

Savanna Dry is produced from crushed apples grown in the Elgin Valley of the fertile Western Cape, and it is described as a clear, refreshing and dry tasting cider.

Simon Newton Dexter

He was also largely interested in manufactures elsewhere in the State of New York and in Elgin, Illinois.

Sir James Grant, 1st Baronet

Appointed King's Advocate, he was created a baronet, "of Dalvey, Elgin", in the baronetage of Nova Scotia on 10 August 1688, with remainder "to his heirs whatsoever".

Thomas W. Bicknell

Thomas Bicknell attended Thetford Academy in Vermont and Amherst College in Massachusetts, taught school and became principal in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, then principal in Elgin, Illinois.


Aberlour railway station

Served by the Strathspey railway, it was the last station before the junction at Craigellachie, where the line met the Great North of Scotland line that ran from Keith to Elgin.

Alick Walker

On graduation, he join the research group of Professor Stanley Westoll at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, working on the fossil reptiles of the Late Triassic found in Elgin.

Andy Kyle

He didn't get much playing time and was sent to the Elgin Kittens of the Northern Association in May and then, when that league folded, to the Lawrence Colts of the New England League in July.

Angelo Carpenter

In Elgin, he served as treasurer for the Northern Illinois Hospital and Asylum for the Insane and President of the Elgin City Banking Co.

Binda Group

The company makes and distributes its own surfer brand (Freestyle) and also licenses brands from Kenneth Cole, Tommy Bahama, Betsey Johnson, BCBG, Ted Baker, Mexx, Speedo, Elgin, Thomas Kinkade and Mudd Jeans.

Borough Briggs

When Elgin City were elected to the Scottish Football League in 2000 they obtained 500 seats from the Geordie club when it was revamping the seated areas in its main (Milburn) stand.

Dean Wendt

Dean Alan Wendt (born February 17, 1968 in Elgin, Illinois) is an American voice actor best known as the voice of Barney on the hit children's show Barney & Friends.

Donna Lunn

A partner in a family dairy operation, Donna Lunn was a past president of the Elgin Federation of Agriculture and a current board member of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA).

Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway

In 1954, a set of Baldwin DR-4-4-1500 "Sharknose" diesels arrived from the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern (a fellow U.S. Steel railroad), though they were returned to Baldwin Locomotive Works when the EJ&E contract expired in 1955.

Elgin Area Historical Society

The museum provides a general review of Elgin’s history while presenting expanded displays on significant community experiences such as the local watch industry, the Elgin Road Races, and The Song of Hiawatha Pageant, a local event based on the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem that entertained Elginites for over 50 years.

Elgin Bypass

The segment of the Elgin Bypass between McLean Boulevard and Grace Street (Illinois Route 25), including the Fox River bridge, was opened first.

Construction of the Golf Road (Illinois Route 58) extension to Summit Street in Elgin was completed in 1932.

Elgin Marbles

A study by Professor David Rudenstine of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law concluded that the premise that Elgin obtained legal title to the marbles, which he then transferred to the British government, "is certainly not established and may well be false".

Elgin Symphony Orchestra

Over the years the Elgin Symphony Orchestra has engaged accomplished musicians including Yo-Yo Ma, James Galway, Itzhak Pearlman, Pinchas Zuckerman, Midori Goto, Kathleen Battle, and Alisa Weilerstein.

Elgin–O'Hare West Bypass

Building the highway would affect the villages of Elk Grove Village, Wood Dale, Itasca and Bensenville.

The Elgin O'Hare West Bypass, is a proposed, Interstate-standard tollway near Chicago that would run along the west side of O'Hare International Airport.

Fire Barn 5

With the success of the Elgin National Watch Company and the Gail Borden Condensing Company, Elgin became a prosperous manufacturing town by the late 1860s.

Hassling-Ketling of Elgin

Ketling (Hassling-Ketling of Elgin) was a fictional character in Henryk Sienkiewicz's novel Fire in the Steppe, the third volume of his award-winning The Trilogy.

Irving Park

Irving Park Road, an alternate name for Illinois Route 19 east of Elgin; it passes through Chicago's Irving Park Community Area

John de Innes

Innes was bishop for over seven years, and died at Elgin on 2 August 1414.

KKLB

KVLR, a radio station (92.5 FM) licensed to serve Elgin, Texas, which held the call sign KKLB from 1990 to 2007

Longmorn

This village was once a small railway junction, and the beginning of the Birnie Distillery rail spur; the now disused Elgin to Craigellachie line then continued south to Aviemore and beyond.

There are currently moves to clear the track to create a cycle path that would link Elgin to the Speyside Way at Craigellachie and from there to Aviemore and the National Cycle Network.

Michael Sprinker

Michael Sprinker (8 February 1950 in Elgin, Illinois – 12 August 1999) was a literary critic known for his writings on Louis Althusser, Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht, among others, as well as for his editorial work at Verso, Cambridge University Press, the New Left Review and The Minnesota Review.

Morayshire Railway

The notion of constructing a railway from Elgin to Lossiemouth was first considered in 1841 by James Grant, an Elgin solicitor who owned, with his brother, the Glen Grant distillery at Rothes—Grant was later to become Provost of Elgin.

When the Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railway (I&AJR) reached Keith via Elgin, the Morayshire was able to complete the Speyside second phase by connecting the Craigellachie line at Orton.

Nylint

Soon afterwards, they made a couple of motorcycle tin wind-ups, a street sweeper wind-up (resembling the actual Elgin machine) and a wind-up that resembled a popular TV icon -- Howdy Doody -- although Nylint never used the name to advertise the toy.

Overberg branch line

The line passes through the fruit-farming area of Elgin before descending the Jakkals River valley to Botrivier.

Rideau Lakes, Ontario

Rideau Lakes contains many villages and hamlets, including Chaffeys Lock, Chantry, Crosby, Daytown, Delta, Elgin, Forfar, Freeland, Harlem, Jones Falls, Lombardy, Morton, Newboro, Newboyne, Phillipsville, Plum Hollow, Portland, Rideau Ferry, and Scotch Point.

Sgt. MacKenzie

Joseph MacKenzie wrote the haunting lament after the death of his wife, Christine, and in memory of his great-grandfather, Charles Stuart MacKenzie, a sergeant in the Seaforth Highlanders, who along with hundreds of his brothers-in-arms from the Elgin-Rothes area in Moray, Scotland went to fight in the Great War.

South Bridge Road

The road was built by convict labour in 1833 which started at the south of Thomson Bridge (now the Elgin Bridge) where it took its name from and the road is the extension of North Bridge Road which starts from Crawford Street to the north of Elgin Bridge.

Stealing Athena

The story is told in dual narratives from the points of view of Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin, who assisted her husband, British ambassador Lord Elgin, in removing the marbles, and Aspasia, mistress to Pericles, who witnessed the construction of the Parthenon.

Thompson–Starrett Co.

By 1967, the company had diversified into other areas, and in 1968, the company was merged with the Elgin Watch Company to form Elgin National Industries.

Urquhart, Moray

However, in 1454 the Benedictine's abandoned Urquhart Priory, moving instead to Pluscarden Abbey, SW of Elgin, after the merger of the two had been agreed by a bull of Pope Nicholas V.

William Gordon-Cumming

Sir William Gordon-Cumming, 2nd Baronet (1787–1854), Scottish Member of Parliament for Elgin Burghs 1831–1832