from the dreaded disease. Fellow's widow, Maria Tracey Fellows, continued to run the hotel; she remarried Nelson Buck in 1850 and renamed the place Buck Hotel. In 1851 there was a second attempt to displace Pontiac. On 23 June 1851 a town called Richmond was platted two miles east of Pontiac. Its backers included powerful local business and political figures. These men had calculated that the new Chicago and Mississippi Railroad would miss Pontiac and would have to cross the Vermilion River at their location. Stores, shops, and a schoolhouse were built at Richmond. However, the Richmond speculators had not reckoned with Jesse W. Fell, who had retained a strong economic and social interest in Pontiac and had important friends among the railroad officials. The tracks missed Richmond and passed through Pontiac, with the station located in Fell's First Addition to the town. Richmond was quickly abandoned; some of its buildings were moved to Pontiac. On the Fourth of July 1854 an exhibition train steamed into Pontiac and a few months later regular service on the railroad, soon to be known as the Chicago and Alton, began. Pontiac had survived. Years of rapid growth Suddenly, Pontiac was a boom town. People flooded in and money for improvements was available. In 1856 Pontiac was officially incorporated. By 1866 the people of Livingston County could afford to spend $18,000 to construct a new stone jail in Pontiac. In 1870 the state established the Reform School at Pontiac. It was to be a model correctional institution for boys. Jesse W. Fell donated sixty-four acres, valued at $10,000, and more land was purchased. Livingston County issued $50,000 in bonds. The town of Pontiac added another $25,000 in bonds and the first buildings were constructed. In 1892 this facility became the Illinois State Reformatory and is now the Pontiac Correctional Center. In 1870 a fire destroyed $50,000 worth of buildings in downtown Pontiac and, like many Illinois towns, the town fathers, spurred on by insurance companies, created a “fire district,” a zone in the commercial part of the city where buildings had to be constructed of brick or some other fireproof material. These districts make Pontiac a classic example of one of the key visual features of the American Midwest: towns with brick commercial districts surrounded by wooden residences. Rebuilding was rapid. Growth continued. In 1871 The Chicago and Paducah Railroad was built with the