Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: maps from 1970 on and the census since 1870.
The Secor post office opened in 1857, the earliest record of the town by name.
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 Secor’s history is told.
Peaked at 508 in 1970; 342 people lived here in 2020.
16 censuses, 1870–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Secor’s Wikipedia page.
From Wikipedia’s history of Secor.
The town was named after Charles A. Secor. A partner in the Engineering firm that laid out the eastern branch of the Peoria and Oquawka Railroad.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Secor, cut from the printed page as they were published.
Secor. The village of Secor was platted for Octave Chanut, June 10th, 1857. The new town was on each side of the railroad, and soon began to attract settlers. It was named for Zeno Secor, one of the directors of the recently completed.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The first house in the village of Secor was built by E. T. Van Alstine, in 1856, the same year the road was built through. Jacob Lahr, a German, who came from Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1850, and to Secor in 1856, built the second house in the village. He was a blacksmith by trade, and opened a shop soon after his arrival — the first in the village. He still plies his vocation, in a few yards of where he commenced more than twenty years ago. A man named Cannon, an old settler, and whose widow is still living near the place, built the third house, and boarded the railroad hands, while working on the rail-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Woodford County. He commenced the job about midnight, made the shoes and finished it just at daylight, when Mr. Bullock mounted and started for Springfield with his petition and long list of names in favor of a new county. His son, J. L. Causey, lives in the village of Secor, and was old enough, when his father came to Illinois, to remember all the trials and hardships of the pioneer life they had to lead, and from him we obtained these items of his father.
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 Secor. 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 Secor.
The Secor post office opened in 1857, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
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 Wikimedia Commons (1), 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.
2020