 It had been a somewhat brutal battle for the Illinois Central Railroad over the decades, with Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln working hard to establish the presence of the Illinois Central Railroad on a State level until Douglas moved to the federal level.By 1850, Douglas was busy working on federally mandated development of transportation plans into law at a federal level for the benefit of the Illinois Central Railroad.According to the 1976 Bremen High School Bicentennial Book, there is evidence of existing plans to run the Illinois Central Railroad through the property that would eventually become the location of Bremen High School in 1953.