Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: maps from 1936 on and old-book passages.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Morgan Township’s history is told.
Two other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Morgan Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Morgan Township is one of twelve townships in Coles County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2020 census, its population was 304 and it contained 157 housing units.
Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 359 to 304 (-15%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Morgan Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Morgan Township has never had any mills, except one or two portable sawmills in the timbered sections along the Embarrass River ; one of these, however, we believe, once added a set of buhrs for grinding corn. Mr. James Morgan says that, when his father first settled in the township, they used to go to the Wabash, and to Decatur, to mill ; that two or three neighbors would join together, and, hitching three or four yoke of oxen to a wagon, would start off" to mill, and sometimes be absent a week or ten days. Milling is now done at Oakland and Charleston, and sometimes at mills in Douglas County.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Morgan Township has never had any mills, except one or two portable sawmills in the timbered sections along the Embarrass River ; one of these, however, we believe, once added a set of buhrs for grinding corn. Mr. James Morgan says that, when his father first settled in the township, they used to go to the Wabash, and to Decatur, to mill ; that two or three neighbors would join together, and, hitching three or four yoke of oxen to a wagon, would start off to mill, and sometimes be absent a week or ten days. Milling is now done at Oakland and Charleston, and sometimes at mills in Douglas County.
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.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Morgan Township. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Morgan Township.
Nobody well known was born in Morgan Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
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, 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.
