Oakley, Illinois

City: Oakley

County: Macon

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 39.8667, -88.8000

Located on the line of the Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railway seven miles east of Decatur, Illinois and surrounded by bountiful agricultural lands, Oakley was a small village in the mid-nineteenth century. The U.S. Post Office Department established a post office in Oakley in August 1850, decommissioned it in March 1856, then reestablished it in August 1856. By 1860, Oakley also had a general store, hotel, its own blacksmith and physician, and a school.

Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 253; James N. Adams, comp., Illinois Place Names (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society, 1989), 459; History of Macon County, Illinois (Philadelphia: Brink, McDonough, 1880), 219-20.