SPRING VALLEY  , a city of Bureau county, Illinois, U.S.A., on the north bank of the Illinois River, in the northern part of the state, about 104 m . S.W. of Chicago . Pop . (189o), 3837; (1900), 6214 (2845 foreign-born); (1910) 7035 . It is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Chicago & North Western, and the Chicago, Ottawa & Peoria (electric) railways . Spring Valley is a shipping and distributing point for a large number of bituminous coal-mines in its vicinity . It was chartered as a city in 1886 . Skeat (Etym . Diet.) it is clear that " spruce " a variant of "pruce," simply stood for Prussian; the form " spruce," rather than house . On hills near the city border are the Ohio state homes " pruce," being established partly by the German Sprossen, for the Masons, the Independent Order of Oddfellows, and the I sprouts or young shoots (seen in Sprossen-bier, spruce beer, Knights of Pythias . The city park contains more than 250 made of the sprouts of this fir) .