LeRoy, Illinois

City: LeRoy

County: McLean

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 40.3500, -88.7500

Located in central Illinois, fifteen miles southeast of Bloomington, LeRoy, Illinois, was initially settled in the late 1820s and was known as Buckle Grove. Asahel Gridley and Merritt L. Covell laid out the village of Leroy in 1835, near the center of Empire Township. Financial convulsions associated with the Panic of 1837 delayed the development of the village, but it soon boasted several churches, a postal route, log homes, and a school. The U.S. Post Office Department established a post office in the village in June 1839. LeRoy had a reputation for newspaper enterprises.

Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of McLean County, ed. by Ezra M. Prince and John H. Burnham (Chicago: Munsell, 1908), 2:704-6; Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 198; Webster's New Geographical Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1988), 663.