use as a grocery store. The first dwelling in Odell was erected by Sydney S. Morgan for the use of Thomas Lyon. Morgan also began buying grain from local farmers. In the fall of 1857 A.A. Streator built a small hotel. In the same year a grain elevator and a school were erected. By the spring of 1858 Odell had about 100 people. On February 8, 1867, the town of Odell was officially organized. Becoming a highway town Early Odell was a railroad town and a grain collection point. It was surrounded by some of the richest agricultural land in the United States. By the late 1870s over a million and a half bushels of grain were being shipped from Odell. In 1877 a newspaper, the Odell Herald, was established. In May 1886 several buildings in Odell were destroyed by a powerful tornado. By 1900 there were 1,000 people in the town, and since that date its population has remained at about that number. The major change came not in population, but in transportation, as Odell made the transition from a railroad to a highway town. In 1921 the state put under contract a highway paving project for what at first was known as the "Chicago-Springfield East St. Louis Road". Paving was finished through Odell in 1922. The designation of the road was soon changed to Route 4. In 1926, what was substantially the same road became Route 66. At first all of these roads passed through the center of Odell, and by 1933 the local citizens became so frustrated by the inability of people to cross the road that they constructed a pedestrian underpass beneath the highway. In 1946 the problem was eased when a bypass was built around the town. In 1932 Patrick O'Donnell built the Standard Oil and Gasoline Station to serve traffic along the highway; this building has now been carefully restored and has become a popular stop for visitors touring Route 66. The station was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. In 1964 the first stage of Interstate 55 was completed past Odell. It was improved in the 1970s. This highway substantially paralleled both the earlier roads and the original route of the Chicago and Mississippi Railroad. Demographics Per the 2010 United States Census, Odell had 1,046 people. Among non-Hispanics this includes 1,017 White (97.2%), 5 Black (0.5%), 2 Asian (0.2%),