Lost Towns of Illinois - Wilson, Illinois.

Wilson was an unincorporated community in southern Warren Township, Lake County, Illinois, United States. The community was located along Illinois Route 120 (Belvidere Road) and is now part of the cities of Waukegan and Park City and the village of Gurnee.

The community in southern Warren Township was originally known as "Warrenton". In 1873, the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad (predecessor to the Milwaukee Road) built a railroad depot in Warrenton, and the following year, Warrenton School was organized. 

In the early 20th century, entrepreneur Thomas E. Wilson purchased 2,000 acres of land in the area, which became known as the Edellyn Farms estate. The depot, post office and school were eventually renamed "Wilson" in his honor.

After World War II, Wilson's identity slowly began to disappear. In 1954, Wilson School was sold for use as a private residence. It was eventually razed to make room for the expansion of Belvidere Road.

In 1958, other parts of the area were incorporated into Park City to avoid annexation by Waukegan. In 1959, the Milwaukee Road Depot was abandoned and eventually razed. The nearby communities of Gurnee and Waukegan expanded, incorporating large parts of Wilson into their borders. 

In 1968, several hundred acres of Edellyn Farms were sold to the city of Waukegan for development as the (now defunct) Lakehurst Mall. 

Very little of the Wilson area remains unincorporated today, though the name still appears on topographic maps.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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.