Urbana, IL

Urbana is the elder and quieter of the twin cities — the county seat founded in 1833, two decades before the railroad conjured Champaign beside it — and the University of Illinois, chartered here in 1867, straddles the boundary between them; the entry cross-references Champaign, whose page tells the twins' shared story. Urbana's own side of the line holds the university's crown jewels: the Main Quad, the Morrow Plots — the oldest experimental crop field in America, farmed continuously since 1876 and a National Historic Landmark — and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, the four-hall complex by Max Abramovitz whose Foellinger Great Hall is one of the finest concert rooms in the Midwest, and the stage under which this archive's twin-city events belong (see the registry note under Champaign).

The town's cultural texture is its own: the Market at the Square farmers' market, a bungalow-shaded street grid, and a favourite son in Roger Ebert, the film critic born and raised here, honoured by the annual Ebertfest at the restored Virginia Theatre. Science fiction added a wink: HAL 9000, the computer of 2001: A Space Odyssey, states that he became operational in Urbana — a tribute to the university's computing fame. The quiet twin, with the better acoustics.