ANNA AND JONESBORO ARE SEPARATE TOWNS THAT SHARE HISTORY

ANNA-JONESBORO, Ill. Anna and Jonesboro are separate Illinois towns, which, because of their close proximity, share much of the same history.

Union County, where Anna and Jonesboro are situated, was mostly settled by native and Yankee Americans, said George Parks, a resident of the area. But the towns were primarily settled by Germans from North Carolina during the Revolutionary War, he said.

Jonesboro was one of the first towns established in Southern Illinois and also in the county, Parks said. One reason for the state's southern tip being settled first was because of the waterways near the two major rivers, he said.

Jonesboro was founded in 1818 and Anna in 1854, Parks said. But when the railroad was completed it went through Anna, which caused many Jonesboro citizens to move to Anna to work on the railroad, he said.

"Many of the businesses also moved closer to the railroad," Parks said. "It wasn't until 1887 that Jonesboro had its own rail line. It was at this time that both towns became shipping points for people and freight."

The railroad had a natural way of coming down the bluffs into Southern Illinois, Parks said. The line came across the hills in the most convenient place, and the first connection was from Cairo north to Anna and then on north to Carbondale, he said.

"The railroad started in 1843, even before Anna had became a town," Parks said. "But the line was flooded out a couple of times, so it finally came through in 1852 and the town started in 1854.

"The railroad helped to bring the population into the town and also the shipping of goods into and out of town."

Parks said there is not a boundary to speak of between the two towns, and there really has never been any rivalry between them either.

"Over the years there has been many intermarriages between the families of the two towns," he said. "There was even a street car that traveled between the two towns and people traveled between them and didn't think anything about it."

The towns and the area surrounding them were primarily farming communities for many years, Parks said. But with the rural lifestyle, some industries also developed to assist the farmers. For example, he said, flour mills, and box and barrel factories opened because their products were needed to ship the agricultural goods out of the area.

Parks said the settlers from the north knew how to work with produce and vegetables. They began shipping berries, peaches and apples to Chicago.

"Since we are located about 200 to 400 miles south of the larger northern areas, like Chicago, we supplied much of the food for the northern cities," Parks said. "Our growing and shipping season was ahead of theirs, and spring also came earlier here and we didn't have the severe killing winters like they had.

"Our location really helped us because we could ship our spring crops of onions, lettuce and berries ahead of the usual market."

Parks said they also had lumber mills because the area around the towns was heavily wooded. Rock quarries also opened and commercial lime was shipped, said Parks.

Through the years the towns have experienced steady growth, Parks said. "It has grown some, but the farming population has decreased," he said. "People don't stay in farming like they used to. The population has remained about the same, but it's different than the old days when people lived on farms and raised a big bunch of kids."

The current population of Anna is 5,700; Jonesboro has 1,800.

Parks said their geographical location has been very favorable to the community through the years. "Anna is a stabilized community that has been around for 150 years. It has an established business and social system, but it has no had any booms of business, or any slumps either.

"We've always made a great livelihood. The downtown business community has suffered because of the Wal-Mart, which opened nine years ago. It hasn't wrecked the businesses downtown, but they have managed to hang on."

The mainline of the Illinois Central Railroad still runs through Anna, Parks said, but most of the shipping is now done by trucks on the interstates that run from Chicago to New Orleans or Florida.

Agricultural produce is still big in the area, but the towns also now have Transcraft Manufacturing plant, which opened in 1960.

Some of the current industries in Anna include the Illinois Mental Hospital and the Union County Hospital. Adjoining it is the rural unit, both of which serve the entire county.

The area also has the state Rehabilitation Center, the Holcomb Machine Works, the Jonesboro Sawmill Co. and the U.S. Veterans Building, which is scheduled to open this summer.

"We have had two industries go out of business in the last few months," Parks said. "The Bunny Bread plant, which was located in Anna, moved its plant to Indiana because the industrial laws were looser there," he said. "We also lost our International Shoe Co. to foreign competition. People just aren't buying shoes made in the U.S. anymore.

"But we'll replace those lost industries with other industries. We have the buildings; we just need to find other businesses to replace them with."