Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
More historic than 91% of U.S. towns. What drives it
Its Register listing is the Civilian Conservation Corps Camp Shiloh Encampment Site. Below: maps from 1934 on and old-book passages.
More historic than 91% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Pleasant Grove Township is more historic than 91% of U.S. towns. All 2 inputs are above most U.S. towns; its share of homes from before 1940 ranks highest and its National Register listings lowest.
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 Pleasant Grove Township’s 10.9 sits above most of its state (84% of Illinois towns have fewer) while its 1 listings outnumber those of 51% of U.S. towns.
Founding year: our sources. 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 →
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 Pleasant Grove Township’s history is told.
Three 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 Pleasant Grove Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Pleasant Grove Township is one of twelve townships in Coles County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,227 and it contained 584 housing units.
Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 1,327 to 1,227 (-8%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Passages that mention Pleasant Grove Township, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Thomas Hart is of the opinion that he must have come as early as the fall of 1825 or the spring of 1826. Settlements were made, no doubt, at an earlier date on the South Kickapoo, in what is now Pleasant Grove Township, east of the Hart settlement ; but the evidence is pretty conclusive that Drake was the first man to make an improvement in Paradise Township. It is maintained by some that one Thomas Wilmuth, a sort of second-rate shoemaker, had built and occupied a cabin or half-faced camp east of the Hart settlement, and prior to their coming, in March, 1827, and that he made the first settlement in the town-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Incidental mention has been made throughout the preceding pages of churches and schools in Pleasant Grove Township, reserving a more extended notice of these subjects in a separate chapter. The first church in this part of the county was built on the Little Indian Creek in 1832. Two years before, on August 30, 1830, the Presbyterian Church of Pleasant Prairie, so say the records, was organized by the Rev. B. F. Spillman. connected with, and under the care of, the General Assembly'. The organization was effected with fourteen members. They were Thomas Mayes, Agnes Mayes, Theron Balch.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
This settlement Avas in what is now Pleasant Grove Township, and embraced as fine a body of land as may be found in Coles County. Michael Taylor and his son Elijah, John and Patrick Gordon, and Dow Goodman, came in the same year, and found shelter in the same nest. Zeno Campbell, the Balahes and others, also came during this year and entered claims on "Goose-Nest" Prairie, or adjacent thereto. In the fall of 1830, John J. Adams, Mark Baker and William Wayne settled in the neighborhood. The Muddy Point settlement was likewise in Pleasant Grove Township. The first squatters here
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.
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyEvery edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Pleasant Grove 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 Pleasant Grove Township.
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Nobody well known was born in Pleasant Grove Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
Pleasant Grove Township is more historic than 91% 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.
One place: the Civilian Conservation Corps Camp Shiloh Encampment Site (listed 2014).
35% of Pleasant Grove Township’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±16.1 points), against a typical 11% for an Illinois town; the median home was built in 1971.
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).
From Wikimedia Commons (6), 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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