BLOOMINGTON - About 20 years ago, Wally Furrow bought much of the abandoned Illinois Central Railroad line in the El Paso area. | Complete List (PDF) | Individual Claim Form (PDF) | Municipal Claim Form (PDF) | Corporation Claim Form (PDF)

Some of it ran past the grain elevators he owned, and he bought another 17 miles just because the railroad "offered it for sale."

This December, Furrow will get back all the money he paid for the land - more than $100,000 - plus interest.

And he's not alone.

More than 630 municipalities, individuals and companies who bought the abandoned railroad track will benefit from a $9.7 million settlement recently handed down in a case that has been tied up in court for 15 years.

The court found the railroad, which is now part of the Canadian National Railway Co., wrongly charged for the property it had received free through a federal land grant.

The city of Bloomington will get back about $74,000; Normal, $89,000; Minonk, $90,000; El Paso, $38,250; and Lostant, $20,000. Interest could add another 5 percent to each of those amounts.

El Paso City Clerk David Fever was surprised by the news.

"I didn't know," he said.

El Paso, like many municipalities, has turned the abandoned railway line into a trail system. In Bloomington-Normal, the land served as the beginning of Constitution Trail.

Furrow also was unaware of the lawsuit until about five weeks ago, when a Chicago attorney called him about the lawsuit.

"I hadn't heard any more and it had been at least five weeks, so I thought it didn't happen," Furrow said Friday.

Darrell Woolums, a Decatur attorney who started the class-action suit in 1992, said few people or municipalities are aware of the settlement. But that's about to change.

Woolums and Chicago attorneys Mike O'Rourke, Mitch Katten and Rick Linden will be sending letters to the original purchasers.

Legal notices also will be published in newspapers in municipalities along the former railroad line in an attempt to reach everyone.

Woolums said any unclaimed money will return to the railroad - something he doesn't want to see after all his hard work.

He's been involved with the issue since 1989, when he was an attorney for the village of Maroa and the railroad approached city officials about buying the former line that ran right through town.

"I looked at the title and saw the railroad got (the land) through a federal land grant," Woolums said. "They were given every even-numbered section for six miles on either side of the railway. It was a lot of land - maybe as much as Rhode Island."

Through further research, Woolums learned Congress adopted a policy in 1920 stating if a railroad abandoned the line and didn't want the land back, municipalities could have it.

Woolums decided to file a class-action suit on behalf of the property purchasers the length of the line in Illinois.

"They put up a stiff defense," Woolums said of the railroad. "We were at the appellate court nine times."

Todd Greenburg, city attorney for Bloomington, was Normal's assistant attorney when the town was negotiating with the railroad for the abandoned line in 1986.

"We questioned one title company very strongly (about having to purchase the land,)" he said. "We thought we owned it anyway."

The title company insisted the town didn't own it and Normal paid for the property that is now Constitution Trail.

"I'm so happy to get this money back to the people who were taken advantage of," said Woolums.