24/7 Biohazard and Crime Scene Cleanup in Broadwell, IL

Broadwell is a village in Logan County, in central Illinois, that was platted in 1856 by William Broadwell and Jacob Eisiminger alongside the new railroad linking Chicago and Springfield.

Broadwell was named for landowner William B. Broadwell after Jacob Eisiminger declined the honor, joking that the village would be handicapped by his unusual name.

Before the village existed, the Tantivy Lodge inn stood three-quarters of a mile east of the site from about 1840 into the early 1950s, and tradition holds that Abraham Lincoln stopped there while riding the judicial circuit to the Logan County courthouse at Postville.

Broadwell's first store was opened by William Sample, its first school opened in 1857, and the village incorporated in 1869.

Broadwell became a shipping point for hogs, corn, and wheat, surrounded by Broadwell Township farmland known for exceptionally productive agricultural soil.

Broadwell sat on historic U.S. Route 66 from the highway's debut in 1926 until the route was decertified in 1977.

Broadwell's best-known landmark was the Pig Hip Restaurant, run by Ernest 'Ernie' Edwards and his family from 1937 to 1991, which earned a citation as 'the best U.S. Route 66 attraction where the original guy is still there'.

Ernie Edwards was an inaugural inductee into the Route 66 Hall of Fame of Illinois in 1990 and later turned the Pig Hip into a Route 66 museum, but the building and most of its contents were destroyed by fire on March 5, 2007.

A bronze and stone memorial to the Pig Hip Restaurant and Route 66 was unveiled by Edwards himself on August 5, 2007; he died in nearby Lincoln in 2012 at age 94.

Broadwell had a population of 136 people at the 2020 census, barely changed from 144 when Jack Rittenhouse described the village in his 1946 Guide Book to Highway 66.