Mascoutah, Illinois

City: Mascoutah

County: St. Clair

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 38.4833, -89.7833

The town of Mascoutah in southwestern Illinois was founded as Mechanicsburg around 1837. It is located twenty-three miles east-southeast of East St. Louis. Mascoutah took its present name in 1839 from the Mascouten people, an Algonquian tribe. The town received a U.S. Post Office in 1836, and was incorporated in 1857.

Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 217; Merriam-Webster’s Geographical Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1997), 715; “An Act to Change the Name of the Town of Mechanicsburg, in St. Clair County,” 16 February 1839, Laws of Illinois (1839), 126; “An Act to Incorporate the Town of Mascoutah, in Saint Clair County, State of Illinois,” 4 February 1857, Private Laws of Illinois (1857), 236-40.