Mount Auburn, Illinois

City: Mount Auburn

County: Christian

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 39.7500, -89.2500

Situated on the north fork of the Sangamon River, twenty-two miles southwest of Springfield and twenty miles southwest of Decatur, Mount Auburn is a town in the northwestern portion of Christian County, Illinois. The U.S. Post Office Department established a post office in the area in May 1839. Proprietors had the site surveyed and platted on July 11, 1839, and the village began to attract settlers, who established churches, steam mills, taverns, blacksmith shops, and stores. In 1852, a cholera epidemic killed forty inhabitants. Mount Auburn was incorporated as a village in February 1878.

Sangamo Journal (Springfield, IL), 31 May 1839, 2:3; 13 September 1839, 2:3-4; James N. Adams, comp., Illinois Place Names (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society, 1989), 445; History of Christian County, Illinois (Philadelphia: Brink, McDonough, 1880), 235-36; Louis L. Emmerson, comp., Official List of Incorporated Municipalities of Illinois (Springfield, IL: Phillips Bros., 1924), 13.