Ellsworth is a village in Dawson Township, McLean County, Illinois, United States. The population was 195 at the 2010 Census. It is part of the Bloomington–Normal Metropolitan Statistical Area. Geography According to the 2010 census, Ellsworth has a total area of , all land. History Founding and Original Design of Ellsworth Ellsworth was laid out on December 6, 1871 by Jonathan H. Cheney (1833–1920) and Almon Brigham Ives (1816–1887) and Oliver Ellsworth, whom the town was named after. Cheney was one of three sons of early McLean County settler Jonathan Cheney active in promoting the Lafayette Bloomington and Mississippi Railroad; when his brother, Haines Cheney, was in the Illinois Senate he had helped to arrange the charter of the railroad. Almon B. Ives was a Bloomington lawyer specializing in land law; both Jonathan Cheney and Almon B. Ives were on the board of directors of the new railroad. In 1876 the railroad was leased to the Lake Erie and Western Railroad and 1879 was incorporated into that road. Construction began on the railroad in 1869 .The new townsite occupied forty acres on each side of the tracks. The plan of Ellsworth was almost identical to that of Arrowsmith. A two hundred foot swath of railroad land cut the town into two almost equal parts. Most of the early commercial development was along Main Street south of the tracks. The depot was on the south side of the tracks and the early elevator on the north side. Selling of Ellsworth at Auction. In November 1871 an advertisement appeared in the Bloomington Pantagraph saying that on November 8 an auction of 150 lots would be held at the site of the new town. The advertisement praised the fertility of the surrounding countryside and stressed that the farms were of moderate size. Readers were told that the new town would be the logical point for shipping grain They were also told that by shipping from Ellsworth their grain would go throughToledo, “avoiding the grain scalpers of Chicago.” All interested people were to gather at the Illinois Central Depot in Bloomington at 9:00 in the morning. A free train would take them to the site of the new town. A free lunch would be provided and Bloomington brewers Meyer and Wochner would provide the beer. Some two hundred people consumed two hundred loaves of bread, one hundred and fifty pounds of boiled ham, sixty