–Not graded

History · Fall Creek Township

Fall Creek Township’s post office opened in 1872, and 39% of its homes were built before 1940

Its Register listing is the Fall Creek Stone Arch Bridge. Below: 1 old photo or paper, maps from 1925 on, and old-book passages.

1872first post office

1on the National Register

39%homes built before 1940

1old photo or paper

Add an old photo Share a memory

From Fall Creek Township’s archive · credits on each photo

Quick answers

How Fall Creek Township began

When was Fall Creek Township founded?

1872

The Fall Creek Township post office opened in 1872, the earliest record of the town by name. Three smaller post offices, Falls Creek (1861), Fallcreek (1872) and Marblehead (1878), opened inside today’s town and later closed.

2020 census: 536154 years

Founding year: the first Fall Creek Township post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).

What stands out about Fall Creek Township’s past

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

A history waiting to be writtenOnly 1 old photo is in the public archives. The rest are in attics and albums.Lost villages3 post offices opened and closed inside today’s Fall Creek Township, and 2 old place names are still on the map.On the map since 19254 editions of the USGS map, 1925 to 1996. Watch Fall Creek Township change.

★ What stands out · Help out

Start Fall Creek Township’s collection

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

Decades since 1900 with photos

00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s

0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.

Date a photo1 archive item has no date. Guess the decade.+2 Retake an old viewFall Creek Bridge Spanning Fall Creek G…: stand where they stood+15 Share a family photoSign in to add one+10

Places that used to be

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

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

Falls Creek

1861–1866

Fallcreek

1872–1909

Marblehead

1878–1962

18601940today

Hamlets and corners on the map

Fall CreekMarblehead

Gone or out of use

Bluff Hall SchoolschoolCenter SchoolschoolCraigtown SchoolschoolFall Creek SchoolschoolHibner SchoolschoolMarblehead Post Officepost officeSand Slough Schoolschool

4cemeteries and burying grounds inside Fall Creek Township

Bluff HallCraigtownFall Creek Methodist ProtestantThompson

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

On the map

Fall Creek Township on the map, 1925 to 1996

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Fall Creek Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Fall Creek Township on the 1925 USGS map

Fall Creek Township on the 1944 USGS map

Fall Creek Township on the 1971 USGS map

Fall Creek Township on the 1996 USGS map

1925Quincy sheet · 1:62,500

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

The story so far

Fall Creek Township, in brief

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

Fall Creek is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Fall Creek Township, Adams County, Illinois, United States. Fall Creek is located along Interstate 172 southwest of Payson. As of the 2020 census, Fall Creek had a population of 31. Fall Creek takes its name from a nearby creek of the same name, which was named for a waterfall along its course. A post office called Falls Creek was established in 1861, and closed in 1866. The post office was reestablished in 1872, the name was changed to Fallcreek in 1894, and the post office was discontinued in 1909.

Its first post office opened in 1872. Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 529 in 2010, 536 in 2020.

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

From the old history books

What they wrote about Fall Creek Township in 1919

Passages that mention Fall Creek Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.

August Schaffer, of Fall Creek Township, has reached that venerable station in life from which he mar survey fourscore years. Nearly sixty of these years have beeu spent in Adams County. Here he worked out his destiny, from that of a poor struggling youth to one of the leading farm owners. He has p… — **Quincy and Adams County history**1919 · page 1240Read the page →
Read the text
August Schaffer, of Fall Creek Township, has reached that venerable station in life from which he mar survey fourscore years. Nearly sixty of these years have beeu spent in Adams County. Here he worked out his destiny, from that of a poor struggling youth to one of the leading farm owners. He has prospered, and has made his prosperity and his American citizenship subject to no qualification or doubt. Every one knows him as a man of most substantial character, and he is one of that type of Illinois farmers who have not only responded to all appeals to increase the productiveness of the soil, but have
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.

Samuel Thompson. The name Thompson is one of the first to occur in the history of early settlement in Fall Creek Township. There have been a number of the family who have contributed their energies and enterprise to local developments. One of them was the late Samuel Thompson, whose son. Arthur J. … — **Quincy and Adams County history**1919 · page 1286Read the page →
Read the text
Samuel Thompson. The name Thompson is one of the first to occur in the history of early settlement in Fall Creek Township. There have been a number of the family who have contributed their energies and enterprise to local developments. One of them was the late Samuel Thompson, whose son. Arthur J. Thompson, now owns and operates the old home farm fourteen miles southeast of Quincy.
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.

Timeline

Fall Creek Township, 1861 to 1962

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

19th century
1861Post officeThe Falls Creek post office opens
1866Post officeThe Falls Creek post office closes
1872Post officeThe Fallcreek post office opens
1878Post officeThe Marblehead post office opens
20th century
1909Post officeThe Fallcreek post office closes
1925On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
1962Post officeThe Marblehead post office closes

By decade

Fall Creek Township, decade by decade

Date unknown1 to date

Date?Fall Creek Bridge Spanning Fall Creek Gorge

Then & now

Stand where they stood

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.

Retake this viewFall Creek Bridge Spanning Fall Creek Gorge

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Fall Creek Township’s page.

Retake this view · +15

On the National Register

1 historic place in Fall Creek Township

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

place listed

National Historic Landmarks

none yet

historic buildings protected

each building in a district counts

first listed

1996

Fall Creek Stone Arch Bridge

Structures

Architectural styles listings

Stone Arch Bridge1

Fall Creek Stone Arch BridgeStone Arch Bridge

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

Stories next door

History across the town line

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

Payson TownshipIts storyB Levee TownshipIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its town Melrose TownshipIts storyC⁻

Questions about Fall Creek Township’s history

What year was Fall Creek Township founded?

The Fall Creek Township post office opened in 1872, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

What is on the National Register in Fall Creek Township?

One place: the Fall Creek Stone Arch Bridge (listed 1996).

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 the Library of Congress (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, 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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