ICES adjunct scientist Mike Conlon appointed ICES North site director. ICES North is in development in Sudbury at Health Sciences North Research Institute and will be launched in late 2017.
Although Illinois could not boast having the first steam-powered railroad in the United States or the Midwest (Maryland in 1828 and Ohio in 1836 claimed those honors), residents could brag of being the home state for some of the earliest American carriers.
Work on the first transcontinental railroad began after President Abraham Lincoln approved the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, a landmark law that authorized the federal government to financially back the construction of a transcontinental railroad. Due to the American Civil War, work was delayed for several years.