McLean, Illinois  McLean is a village in McLean County, Illinois, United States. The population was 830 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Bloomington–Normal Metropolitan Statistical Area. McLean is the home of the Dixie Travel Plaza. According to the 2010 census, McLean has a total area of , all land. The town of McLean was laid out on June 22, 1855 by Franklin Price. Price (February 21, 1821 - July 25, 1908) was born in Chester Valley, Pennsylvania. He was the brother-in-law of Bloomington real estate developer Kersey Fell. Price came to Bloomington in 1849, he worked as a clerk and newspaper writer and was elected mayor of Bloomington in 1855 and again in 1856, serving until 1858. Price never lived in the new town he founded. McLean was laid out when the Alton and Springfield Railroad, soon to become the Alton Railroad, was first built through McLean County. The nearby towns of Atlanta, Normal, and Towanda were laid out at the same time as McLean. There had been an earlier attempt to found a town nearby. Hope, two miles east of McLean, was established in 1836 by the Providence Farmers and Mechanics Emigrating Society of Rhode Island. The colony and its town were not a success; only three settlers actually arrived in McLean County. When the town of McLean was founded, the church building from Mt. Hope was moved into McLean. The first residents of McLean were the brothers G.L. and F.A. Wheelock, railroad employees, who moved into the new station house to conduct business. A blacksmith shop was the first business and H.H. Dillon built the first warehouse. McLean was incorporated as a village on May 29, 1866. By 1900, it had grown to a population of 532. The design of the original town of McLean remains almost unaltered to this day from the original plans. The design was similar to other places along the Alton and Springfield Railroad including Normal, Towanda, Odell, and Dwight. The original town was basically a square with streets aligned north–south and east–west, split diagonally by the railroad with a line of lots paralleling either side of the tracks. As in other towns along the same railroad, there was a widened rectangular area paralleling the tracks labeled “Depot Grounds.” In the case of McLean, the Depot Grounds were laid out only on the southeast side of the railroad.