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History · Cooper Township

11% of Cooper Township’s homes were built before 1940

Its Register listings are the Joseph Ross House and the Joseph Miller House. Below: maps from 1982 on.

2on the National Register
11%homes built before 1940
Add an old photoShare a memory

What stands out about Cooper Township’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

Lost villages6 post offices opened and closed inside today’s Cooper Township, and 3 old place names are still on the map.A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Cooper Township are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.
★ What stands out · Places that used to be

Lost post offices, old corners, places now gone and burying grounds

Six other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.

Mortarsville
1863–1869
South Fork
1869–1870
Berry
1870–1931
Breckenridge
1875–1926
Custer
1889–1924
Buckhart
1893–1915
18601940today
Hamlets and corners on the map
BerryBreckenridgeBuckhart
Gone or out of use
American SchoolschoolBerry Oil FieldoilfieldMartin SchoolschoolRoby West Oil FieldoilfieldTaft Airportairport
1cemetery inside Cooper Township
Oak Hill

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Help out

Start Cooper Township’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Cooper Township’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
The story so far

Cooper Township, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Cooper Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

Cooper Township is a rural township in Sangamon County, Illinois, covering about 28.7 square miles, almost all of which is land, and home to 758 residents as of 2020. It is a small but relatively affluent community with an older population, strong homeownership, high educational attainment, and income levels above state and national averages.

Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 893 in 2010, 898 in 2020.

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

Timeline

Cooper Township, 1863 to 1982

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1863Post officeThe Mortarsville post office opens
  3. 1869Post officeThe Mortarsville post office closes
  4. 1869Post officeThe South Fork post office opens
  5. 1870Post officeThe South Fork post office closes
  6. 1870Post officeThe Berry post office opens
  7. 20th century
  8. 1931Post officeThe Berry post office closes
  9. 1982On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

Cooper Township, decade by decade

Today3 recent
Cooper Township building corner 2026-05-292026Cooper Township building corner 2026-05-29Clear Lake Township front 2026-05-292026Clear Lake Township front 2026-05-29Berry Illinois skyline wide 2026-05-292026Berry Illinois skyline wide 2026-05-29
On the map

Cooper Township on the map in 1982

The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Cooper Township.

Cooper Township on the 1982 USGS map1982Edinburg sheet · 1:24,000

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Cooper Township.

On the National Register

2 historic places in Cooper Township

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

places listed
2
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
2
each building in a district counts
first listed
1980
Joseph Miller House
Joseph Ross HouseJoseph Miller House
Buildings

Architectural styles listings

Italianate1
Federal1
Joseph Ross HouseItalianate
All 2 listings
Joseph Miller HouseBuilding · listed 1980

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

Famous people

Famous people close to Cooper Township

Nobody well known was born in Cooper Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.

See all →
Andre IguodalaAmerican basketball player · b. 1984
Robert Todd LincolnUnion Army officer, U.S. ambassador, and Secret… · b. 1843
Seth Barnes NicholsonAmerican astronomer · b. 1891
Vachel LindsayAmerican poet · b. 1879
C
Cecily StrongAmerican actress · b. 1984
George LloydActor · b. 1892
Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

Mount Auburn TownshipIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its townLanesville Township1 historic placenot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its townBuckhart TownshipIts storyC+Rochester Township1 historic placeB+Mechanicsburg TownshipIts storyB

Questions about Cooper Township’s history

What is on the National Register in Cooper Township?

Two places: the Joseph Ross House (listed 2006) and the Joseph Miller House (1980).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

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 Wikimedia Commons (3), the National Register of Historic Places (2), U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.