in the ways of frontier towns, Lawrence had taken the precaution of bringing a stout stick to the dance. Rushing downstairs he burst out the door swinging his shillelagh and quickly dispersing the rowdies. The ball went on. D. Harwood was the first merchant to open a store in Gilman which maintained a full stock of goods. The first train through Gilman arrived on 21 September 1857 and was to take local people to the State Fair in Peoria. It was three hours late, but its arrival signaled the start of a period of rapid growth for the new town. The Illinois Central did not begin to run trains until 1858. In 1860 the first school was built; by 1865, the town had 31 buildings. Gilman was officially organized as a town in 1867. Continued growth By the late 1860s, Gilman had two railroads. The eastern branch of the Illinois Central linked St. Louis and Chicago, while the Toledo Peoria and Western ran east and west across the state, from the Mississippi River to Indiana. Gilman prospered as the place where people and goods were transferred from one railroad to the other. In 1870 newspaper, the Gilman Star began publication. The 1870 federal census found Gilman had 761 people. In September 1871, a third railroad, originally called the Gilman, Clinton and Springfield Railroad, opened for business. It was largely funded by local bonds and never enjoyed the success of the earlier railroads. On 5 July 1883 a severe fire damaged much of the town. An electric power plant was built in 1898. Unlike many local towns, Gilman continued to grow in the twentieth century. In 1920, there were 1,443 people. In 1923 and 1924, the state of Illinois began building a new "hard road" paralleling the Toledo Peoria and Western Railroad, which was at first called the Corn Belt Trail, but soon became U.S. Route 24. A second new road, paralleling the Illinois Central Railroad through Iroquois County, initially known as the Egyptian Trail, evolved into Interstate 57 in the 1970s. In the last decade, a second water tower was built along Interstate 57 on the western side of Gilman. Demographics As of the census of 2000, there were 1,793 people, 739 households, and 472 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 816 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of