Hillsboro, Illinois

City: Hillsboro

County: Montgomery

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 39.1500, -89.4833

Hillsboro, Illinois is the county seat of Montgomery County. Located forty-eight miles south-southeast of Springfield, sixty-five miles northeast of St. Louis, and approximately 200 miles southwest of Chicago, Hillsboro originated out of a law enacted by the Illinois General Assembly in January 1823 authorizing commissioners to relocate the seat of government for Montgomery County. Commissioners appointed for the purpose selected the site that would become Hillsboro, executing a deed for twenty acres in June 1823 and laying out the village in August. Hillsboro remained a village until February 1855, when the General Assembly incorporated it as a town.

William Henry Perrin, ed., History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois (Chicago: O. L. Baskin, 1882), 186-87, 221; Webster's New Geographical Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1988), 504; "An Act to Incorporate the Town of Hillsboro, Montgomery County, Illinois," 14 February 1855, Private Laws of Illinois (1855), 180-84.