HUEGLEY, ILLINOIS 
by Heather Littlehale
May 18, 1987

Introduction:

My term paper is on the small town named Huegley. It is four 
miles north and three miles east of Nashville. When this term 
paper was first assigned. I had no idea what I was going to 
write on. When I started looking around and asking questions 
at home I found out that my stepfather knew a lot about Huegley 
so I chose that for my topic. I found out a lot of interesting 
information that really surprised me.

Huegley is a very small town that is now located four miles 
north and three miles east of Nashville. It consists of five 
houses, an old barn and a saw mill that is closed at this time. 
Most of the people that live there now moved there because of the 
saw mill. It was first owned by Mr. Ed. Martin, in the early 50's 
and mid 60's. In 1968 Mr. Dale Hassell (Ed Martin's son-in-law) 
bought him out. 1

However, Huegley has not always been the small dingy town it is 
now. At one time it was even at a different location.

When Huegley was first started it was located farther south down 
the railroad tracks. It consisted of only an elevator and a general 
store. Then the elevator and store was moved to the location where 
Huegley now stands. Huegley was started by three Brink Brothers. 
(Fred, Henry, and Charles). It consisted of an elevator and feed 
store, a general store and a blacksmith shop. It also had a post 
office, a community hall above the blacksmith shop and a train 
depot where passenger trains would go through two times a day. 
They even had a community garden on the west side of town where 
everyone who wanted could plant a garden.

The elevator consisted of one building that the surrounding farmers 
brought their wheat and other grains to. Everything was handled in 
sacks not bulk like it is today. It later became the first elevator 
in the area to have a grain dump which stopped the use of sacks. 
The dump was made by one Brink brother to give to another one. My 
stepfather Kenneth Kleeman can remember waiting in line in his horse 
drawn wagon waiting to unload and also how when the trains went by 
the horses would go crazy and be hard to keep calm. He also remembers 
in 1958 a group of men including Ruddy Lilenkamp, Amos Rixmann, my 
stepfather Kenneth Kleeman, and his father Albert Kleeman overhauled 
a steam engine and thrashing machine behind the blacksmith shop. 
This steam engine and thrashing machine were driven in the Hoyleton 
Centenial Parade.

The general store was small but had all the items people needed 
like food, tools, clothes, etc. Most of the time the people would 
not use money to buy food but they would bring in farm products 
such as eggs to trade for food and clothes. There was also a small 
post office in the general store. 2

The blacksmith was a very important person. He shod horses and 
also made many other things with steel such as harrows to work 
ground with. Above the blacksmith shop was a community hall used 
for business and pleasure activities such as meetings or band 
concerts. 3

Huegley started to go downhill when the cars and hard roads 
started to be common. Before hard roads they would use the cars 
during the summer and during the winter they would jack up the 
cars so the weight was off the tires and use the horse and buggy. 4

When they go hard roads the people started going to Nashville 
to the stores because they were bigger and had more of a selection 
to choose from. 5 People moved to the bigger towns to get better 
jobs and slowly day by day Huegley was falling apart and getting 
smaller and smaller. The more the world learned and moved up the 
more Huegley moved down. Until all that was left are five houses, 
an old barn, a railroad crossing and an old run down saw mill.

Conclusion:

Researching and writing this term paper has been a very good 
experience for me. At first I thought it would be boring and I 
would never get it done. But even though it took me a long time 
to get started it turned out to be very interesting and fun to 
work on. I learned a lot of facts about the area I have lived in 
since first grade that I had no idea even existed before. I am 
glad that you assigned this term paper to us. I think it made us 
all learn a little more about the county we live in.

End Notes:
1. Hassell, Dale; Interviewed in Huegley, Illinois
2. Kleeman, Kenneth; Interviewed in Hoyleton, Illinois
3. "
4. "
5. Kleeman Connie; Interviewed in Hoyleton, Illinois

Bibliography:
Hassell, Dale, interviewed in Huegley Illinois
Kleeman, Connie, Interviewed in Hoyleton, Illinois
Kleeman, Kenneth, Interviewed in Hoyleton, Illinois