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Loose Pulley Junction is a fictional populated place and railroad station along the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (MILW) main line near Rock River in Stillman Valley, Ogle County, Illinois, US.
Map of Loose Pulley Junction, Marion Township, IL 61084, USA
From about 1910 to about 1970, there was a well-respected railroad engineer in the area, named Louie "Loose Pulley" Johnson. He lived in a wooded area along the east bank of Rock River, north of the MILW tracks. Around 1941, as a sign of respect, some fellow engineers painted a standard station sign "LOOSE PULLEY JUNCTION" and hung it along the tracks at about 42°7′34″N 89°13′26″W. Engineers were known to routinely give a whistle salute as they passed the sign.
Perhaps submitted by those who made the signage, or maybe a cartographic surveyor, the location became marked on the USGS maps as of, at latest, 1971 and remains there today. It is also in the USGS GNIS database. The place can even be searched and found on Google maps, Bing Maps, and OpenStreetMap.