PIONEERS DRIVE CATTLE TO CHICAGO In the earliest times the farmers hereabouts drove their cattle, and took their corn, clear to Chicago, and some who made the trip returned with lumber to replace their original log cabins. Before the McVean mill was opened in Streator, in the late sixties, the farmers hereabouts took there wheat to Ottawa to be ground. Before the railroads came, hogs first were driven to Grand Ridge and sold to dealers, who then drove them to Ottawa. Mail came to early settlers not oftener than once a week. The carrier, John Fulwyler, mounted on a horse, had a route which started at Ottawa, with stops successively at Farm Ridge postofice, then south to Alum Rock (northwest now of Streator on the old Ward King place); next southeast to Isaac Painter's farm (now Painter's Addition), then termed "Eagle" postoffice, and finally southeast to New Michigan (now Cornell) postoffice and Pontiac. Return on the west side of the Vermilion River the route touched Reading, McQuown's place, a little southwest of Streator, and then led northwest to La Salle.