The Cannon Ball Route was a historic auto trail that ran from

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

, east-northeast to Chicago, Illinois, by way of Hannibal, Missouri, and

Quincy, Illinois Quincy ( ), known as Illinois's "Gem City", is a city in and the county seat of Adams County, Illinois, United States, located on the Mississippi River. The 2020 census counted a population of 39,463 in the city itself, down from 40,633 in 2010. ...

. A branch of the route connected the Missouri section of the highway to Des Moines, Iowa, by way of Leon, Iowa. The route was included in the 1917 Map of Marked Routes provided by the Illinois State Highway Department, a precursor to the modern-day Illinois Department of Transportation. This highway routing closely parallels the Hannibal-Quincy to Chicago branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad.

Route description

The Missouri portion of the route ran from Kansas City to Quincy by way of Hannibal. The route also passed through La Belle, Edina,

Kirksville Kirksville is the county seat and most populous city in Adair County, Missouri. Located in Benton Township, Adair County, Missouri, Benton Township, its population was 17,530 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Kirksville is home to ...

, Milan, Harris, Liberty, Excelsior Springs,

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, Carrollton, Chillicothe, Trenton and Princeton. In 1917, the Illinois section of the Cannon Ball Route was marked as running north from Quincy along modern-day Illinois Route 96 with the Rushville & Quincy Trail. It turned east at modern-day U.S. Route 24, before turning north at

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. It eventually followed modern Illinois Route 61 to

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, where the route ran east. The route follows Illinois 61 to its terminus at

U.S. Route 136 U.S. Route 136 is an east-west U.S. highway that is a spur route of U.S. Route 36. It runs from Edison, Nebraska, at U.S. Route 6 and U.S. Route 34 to the Interstate 74/Interstate 465 interchange in Speedway, Indiana. This is a distance of . U ...

near Tennessee. The route follows U.S. 136 east as the main road through Macomb to the 9-mile Y, SE of Bardolph, where the route diverts from U.S. 136, it turns north on modern-day Illinois Route 41. The Cannon Ball Route passes through Bushnell paralleling the CB&Q railroad north to Galesburg and ran largely on what is now

U.S. 34 U.S. Route 34 (US 34) is an east–west United States highway that runs for from north-central Colorado to the western suburbs of Chicago. Through Rocky Mountain National Park it is known as the Trail Ridge Road where it reaches elevation , ...

from Galesburg to Chicago, except for diversions to the city centers of

Buda Buda (; german: Ofen, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Budim, Будим, Czech and sk, Budín, tr, Budin) was the historic capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and since 1873 has been the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest, on the ...

, Leland, and Bristol. Near Yorkville, the route turns northeast onto Cannonball Trail to Bristol. The route then passed through downtown Montgomery and Aurora before running east-northeast to Naperville. Here, the Cannon Ball Route may have followed any of a number of streets before joining the Chicago-Kansas City-Gulf Highway in Maywood for the remainder of the journey into Chicago. A branch of the route ran from Princeton, Missouri, to Des Moines, Iowa, via Leon, Iowa.

History

The Cannon Ball Trail Association, which was based in Leon, Iowa, marked the Missouri and Iowa portions of the route in 1912. The Chicago Auto Club marked the Illinois segment of the highway in 1913. By 1915, the route was considered "one of the best-marked highways between Quincy... and Chicago", and an extension from Quincy to the St. Louis – Kansas City highway at Monroe City was posted.

References

{{reflist Auto trails in the United States Historic trails and roads in Illinois Historic trails and roads in Missouri U.S. Route 136 U.S. Route 34 U.S. Route 24