Founding year: the first Long Creek post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Long Creek’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Long Creek is more historic than 30% of U.S. towns. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its National Register listings pull it down.
C
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Long Creek’s overall grade.
Few Illinois towns list much on the Register (a typical Illinois town has 0.5 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Long Creek’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (28% of Illinois towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C− to C+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±4.1 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Long Creek’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Long Creek is named for the creek that runs through the area.
The first settlers arrived in 1828 from North Carolina and subsequently built log cabins and made improvements on the surrounding land. In the fall of 1828, a band of Native Americans from the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma arrived and set up camp along Long Creek and began trapping, hunting, and fishing. When they were relatively unsuccessful at catching game, the Kickapoo began killing hogs and stealing poultry from the early settlers. Eventually a group of settlers drove them from the county.
Passages that mention Long Creek, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Centennial history of Decatur and Macon county1930 · page 438Read the page →
Read the text
Long Creek township has two railroad stops. Long Creek is in Section 27. A postoffice was established there in 1875, called Long Creek, and a store was started the same year by Kizer & Myers. Benson Myers was the first postmaster. The town was laid out in 1882.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Centennial history of Decatur and Macon county1930 · page 95Read the page →
Read the text
Long Creek township was named from the creek which flows through it. One report is that the creek was named because of its length, and another is to the effect that it was named for a family named Long.
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
Long Creek, 1875 to 1929
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
The Long Creek post office opened in 1875, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Long Creek rank for history?
Long Creek is more historic than 30% of U.S. towns. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Long Creek?
11% of Long Creek’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±4.1 points), against a typical 11% for an Illinois town; the median home was built in 1972.
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).
From Wikipedia, 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.
