The Emden post office opened in 1871, the earliest record of the town by name.
First census: 143 in 18802020 census: 467155 years
How did Emden get its name?
The village was named after Emden, Germany due to the large number of residents who immigrated to the area from villages along the River Ems The first newspaper published in Emden was The Emden Star in 1893.
Founding year: the first Emden post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Name: Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
What stands out about Emden’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Emden yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Emden is a village in Logan County, Illinois, United States. The population was 467 at the 2020 census. The village was named after Emden, Germany due to the large number of residents who immigrated to the area from villages along the River Ems[1] The first newspaper published in Emden was The Emden Star in 1893.
Its first post office opened in 1871. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 485 to 467 (-4%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Emden, 1886–1911
Passages that mention Emden, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Logan County Illinois1911 · page 617Read the page →
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The village of Emden was laid out in 1871 by John M. Gill, of Pekin, for the directors of the Peoria, Lincoln & Decatur, now the Peoria and Evansville branch of the Illinois Central railroad. The town was surveyed by Thomas G. Gardner, county Surveyor, June 15, 1871, and con-
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History of Logan County Illinois1911 · page 618Read the page →
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Emden was incorporated as a village under the general law of 1894. The following is a list of the first officials: President, J. G. Zimmer; clerk, Theo. Van Beuning; police magistrate, Philip Ward; trustees, J. L.
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History of Logan County, Illinois, together with sketches of its cities, villages, and towns, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent person, and biographies of representative citizens1886 · page 329Read the page →
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to America, landing at New York. He came to Illinois and was engaged as bookkeeper for a firm which dealt in hardware and farm implements at Pekin till the fall of 1872. He also clerked for a short time at Emden in the first store at that place. He returned to his native country for the purpose of studying pharmacy, and thus prepared himself for a druggist. He attended the university eighteen months where he also took a scientific course. In July, 1878, he again returned to the United States, and received a diploma
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History of Logan County, Illinois1886 · page 329Read the page →
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to America, landing at New York. He came to Illinois and was engaged as bookkeeper for a firm which dealt in hardware and farm implements at Pekin till the fall of 1872. He also clerked for a short time at Emden in the first store at that place. He returned to his native country for the purpose of studying pharmacy, and thus prepared himself for a druggist. He attended the university eighteen months where he also took a scientific course. In July, 1878, he again returned to the United States, and received a diploma
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.
By decade
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Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
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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.
