Alexander County, Illinois

County: Alexander

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 37.1833, -89.1833

On March 4, 1819, the Illinois General Assembly created Alexander County from unorganized territory south of Union County. In April 1819, commissioners appointed to establish a permanent seat of justice selected the city of America. The county seat was far from permanent: In 1833, the county seat moved to Unity, then to Thebes in 1845, before settling finally at Cairo in 1860.

"An Act forming the detached part of Union county into a separate county," 4 March 1819, Laws of Illinois (1819), 113-14; An Act Supplemental to "An Act to Locate Permanently the Seat of Justice of Alexander County," Approved January 18, 1833; William H. Perrin, ed., History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois (Chicago: O. L. Baskin, 1883), 454-55, 460, 465.