Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0
Quick answers
How Downs Township began
When was Downs Township founded?
1860
The Downs Township post office opened in 1860, the earliest record of the town by name. Wikidata gives 1870. Another post office, Southdown (1891), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
2020 census: 1,346166 years
Founding year: the first Downs Township post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Wikidata: 1870.The full story ↓
What stands out about Downs Township’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Downs was originally a small community known as "Delta", established by McLean County settlers in 1829. Previously, the area served as a trading post for the Kickapoo people. When the Indiana, Bloomington and Western Railway was built in 1869, several buildings were dismantled and reconstructed further south to put the town closer to the railroad. The town was then renamed "Priceville" in honor of John Price, a resident who owned the land near the tracks. In 1902, the town's name was changed to "Downs", after postal clerks commonly confused Priceville with the similarly named Illinois town of Princeville. Downs is named for Lawson Downs, one of the area's pioneer settlers.
Passages that mention Downs Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of McLean County, Illinois1924 · page 97Read the page →
Read the text
Downs Township.— When township organization was perfected in 1858, this township was named Savanna, but owing to there being another township of that name in the state, the name was changed to Downs in honor of Lawson Downs, who settled in 1829 at a tract of timber known as Diamond Grove, part of this township. There were 1,300 (5)
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
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 (4), 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.
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