Upper Embarrass, Illinois

City: Upper Embarrass

County: Coles

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 39.5173, -88.0911

Located files miles east-northeast of Charleston, Upper Embarrass, Illinois was the site of a U.S. post office in Coles County, Illinois. The U.S. Post Office Department established a post office in the area in July 1846. The Post Office Department named the site for the Embarras River, which in Early American French meant “an obstruction in a waterway created by uprooted trees and accumulated debris that hindered navigation and posed a danger to boatmen.” The Post Office Department discontinued the office in June 1865.

Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 112-13; James N. Adams, comp., Illinois Place Names (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society, 1968), 530.