Most of Berlin was built recently: 5% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1982. Below: maps from 1971 on and the census since 1880.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Berlin yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Berlin is a village in Sangamon County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, Berlin had a population of 141. It is part of the Springfield, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is also colloquially called "Old Berlin", due to the larger village of New Berlin 1.4 miles south.
Its first post office opened in 1833. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 180 to 141 (-22%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Berlin, 1886–1905
Passages that mention Berlin, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Private lives of Kaiser William II and his consort and secret history of the court of Berlin, from the papers and diaries extending over a period, beginning June, 1888, to the spring of 1898, of Ursula, Countess von Eppinghoven [pseud.] Dame du Palais to1905 · page 29Read the page →
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Her Majesty had said that one-half of the Court society was now writing anonymous letters to the other half, and vice versa, and for that reason she would never again live in Berlin for any length of time. And that was not merely one of Her Majesty’s pungent Briticisms that pass for mois in Berlin, but the sober truth. Not only was the number of missives sent out beyond the physical power of two pairs of hands, even admitting that one of them wielded a type-
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constitution of 1833, and to dismiss seven Gottingen professors who protested against this arbitrary measure. In 1840, Frederick William IV. succeeded his father in Prussia, but he did little to alter the system that had prevailed in Berlin since 1815. The last relic of Polish independence was done away with in 1846, when the republic of Krakau, on the pretext of an insurrection, was incorporated with Austria.
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could no longer endure to see the emperor oppressed and the constitution broken by Austria, that he was determined to send auxiliaries to aid Charles VII., but that his conduct was in no way a breach of the treaty of Berlin. The same contention was made in a manifesto which he published at Berlin. On the very same day he demanded from the Saxon government a free passage for his troops as imperial auxiliaries. Augustus III. was in Warsaw, whence he ordered that the demand should be refused. Fortunately for
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Private lives of Kaiser William II and his consort and secret history of the court of Berlin, from the papers and diaries extending over a period, beginning June, 1888, to the spring of 1898, of Ursula, Countess von Eppinghoven [pseud.] Dame du Palais to1905 · page 267Read the page →
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Riding and walking are the only bodily exercises my mistress indulges in, aside from dancing once or twice a year at a certain private ball held at their Majesties’ apartments in Berlin. These soirees dansantes must not be confounded with the great Court balls in the White Hall, when all is state and pomp and ennuiy and the Emperor and Empress leave the throne only once during the whole course of the evening to say a few official nothings to some Minister,
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
By decade
No old photos in the archives yet
Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
