Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Brimfield yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Brimfield (formerly Charleston) is a village in Peoria County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, Brimfield had a population of 778. Brimfield is part of the Peoria, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Its first post office opened in 1843. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 868 to 778 (-10%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Brimfield in 1880
Passages that mention Brimfield, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The History of Peoria County, Illinois. Containing a history of the Northwest--history of Illinois--history of the county, its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc., etc. ..1880 · page 574Read the page →
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A branch of the C, B. & Q. railroad passes through the east side of Brimfield township and the town of Brimfield. It is a place of about eight hundrt'd inhabitants, and contains a number of prosperous business houses in different lines of tiadc, ](romincnt among which are C. B. it E. K. Hayes, in dry goods ; Wesley Stain and W. Cowls, in groceries; J. P. & B. B. Bowman, in hardware ; Wm. Robinson, in drugs; F. P. Wiley, in jewelry, wall-paper, etc.; F. H. Camp, in furniture. Daniel Belcher is proprietor of the Brimfu'ld House, one of the l)est managed and popular country hotels in the county.
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The History of Peoria County, Illinois. Containing a history of the Northwest--history of Illinois--history of the county, its early settlement, growth, development, resources, etc., etc. ..1880 · page 714Read the page →
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BUKT H. O. dealer in grain, res;. Brimfield, was bom in Rockingham, Vt., on the third day of May, 1823; having a' tained his seventeenth year worked as farm laborer until twenty-one years of age, arriving at Peoria on that day, but soon after came to Brimfield.
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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
Brimfield, decade by decade
One decade in the archive so far: the 1900s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
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 the Library of Congress (3), the National Register of Historic Places (1), 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.
1909
Date?
