Lost Towns of Illinois - Whistleville, Illinois.

Although the Big Creek upper watershed is open space now, it was one of the first points settled by Euro-Americans in the 1820s in what became Macon County. Today, the settlement site is closest to Decatur, Illinois.

The settlers found mature oaks and hickories here, looking for wooded land on the unforested prairie. The first settlers named their pioneer settlement Whistleville. Soon a stagecoach route made the settlement a port of call between Indiana and Central Illinois.

Early settlers were mostly from the American South. The settlement was identified as a location of Southern sympathizers during the American Civil War. 

After the Civil War, Whistleville dwindled and disappeared into ghost town status.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Lost Towns of Illinois - Tracy, Illinois.

Tracy is a ghost town in Essex Township, Kankakee County, Illinois.

Tracy was a relatively small settlement, amounting to about a dozen buildings, which housed coal miners exploiting a nearby coal seam in the 1800s. It disappeared quickly around 1900 when the seam ran dry. 

According to the 1892 Map of the Illinois Central Railroad, Tracy was located just northwest of Buckingham and served as a major Illinois Central Railroad spur.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.