Lost Towns of Illinois - Appleton, Illinois

Appleton was laid out by J.H. Lewis as a village in the spring of 1888. It was situated on the north side of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and the station was named after the village. Appleton was prone to flooding. 

A visual aid.

Mills Voris was the surveyor. It contained a freight and express office, two stores, a grain elevator, a blacksmith shop, a carpenter shop, a lumber yard and nine dwellings. E.J. Steffln was the postmaster. Some grain and a large quantity of stock are shipped from here annually. W.H. McElwain shipped more than fifty cars of hogs. Persifer Town Hall cost over $600 ($18,700 today), and held one of the six Sunday schools in Knox County.

The village site is empty, except for several paved streets that served the village. The size of the village dwindled during much of the 20th century. The few houses left in the original village were relocated to higher ground after the Great Flood of 1993.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Lost Towns of Illinois - Clayville, Illinois.

Clayville was a roadside hamlet (fewer than 100), inhabited from 1824 into the 1850s, located in Cartwright Township, 14 miles northwest of Springfield, Illinois. 

A visual aid.

The settlement was never very large but was firmly centered on a once-thriving tavern on the main road between Springfield, the state capital, and the Illinois River port of Beardstown. The Broadwell Tavern continues to stand on its original foundation today as a reminder of the once-active frontier settlement.

With its heyday in the 1830s and 40s, life in this town centered around a successful tavern that served stagecoach travelers. The town faltered with the rise of railroads. Even when the roads were paved and became Route 125, things continued to go downhill, and the area was abandoned.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.