Lost Towns of Illinois - Murpheysboro, Illinois.

The oldest and least known lost village in Macon County is Murpheysboro (with an "E") in Friends Creek township. It was just south of the town of Old Newburg on the farm known to old settlers as the Volgamot farm.

Platted sometime in the early 1830s by a North Carolinian named Murphy. Murpheysboro, at one time, had four or five log houses, a girls' school, a blacksmith shop and a general store. For a while, it flourished and was thought to rival Decatur, Illinois. 

When the railroad bypassed Murpheysboro, people up and moved. Buildings were dismantled and moved or sold. It didn't take long for Murpheysboro to disappear.

Nothing remains of the town. Even its precise location has been forgotten.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.