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. 

Lost Towns of Illinois - Dantown, Illinois.

Early county notes the Dantown area as a Spanish trading post being the center of Indian activity. Colonel Daniel Conklin of Ohio arrived in Macon County, Illinois, and Conklin platted the Village of Dantown in 1854.

It was about one and a half miles East of Argenta, Illinois. 

Google map of the area.

The corn whiskey distillery was the village's employer and friend to all. There were four streets, several stores, about 15 homes, a grist mill, a sawmill, and a tile yard. 

Because drinking, gambling, fighting, and flagrant debauchery, got out of hand, the village of Dantown was called "Hell's Half Acre." 

After Conklin's death, a heavy whiskey tax during the Civil War and the railroad bypassed the town by one mile to the west. Buildings were dismantled and moved or sold. It didn't take long for Dantown to disappear.

V.D. Ross operated the Dan-town distillery as late as 1910. The area's decline was accelerated when most of Macon County went dry in 1907. Up until then, Dan-Town was producing up to 100 gallons a day.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.