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Spring Bay is a village in Woodford County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the village population was 474, up from 452 in 2010. The village is part of the Peoria, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Its first post office opened in 1848. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population grew from 452 to 474 (+5%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Spring Bay in 1878
Passages that mention Spring Bay, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The Past and present of Woodford County, Illinois1878 · page 305Read the page →
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The first house in the village of Spring Bay was built by a man named Benjamin Merithew. who, it seems, had once owned the land or had pre-empted it, or something of that kind, and was built before the village was laid out. It was a small log cabin, and stood where Genoways' store-house now stands. The first store-house put up was the one now occupied by Lewis Williams, and was built in the early part of 1838, and only weather-boarded and covered when Genoways came to the neighborhooil. When he returned from Ohio to this place, in 1840, nothing further had been done, nor did tlie village begin to im-
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The Past and present of Woodford County, Illinois1878 · page 352Read the page →
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Jesse Dale, mentioned in other chapters of this work, seems to have been a kind of migratory character, who was not satisfied long in one place. We find him in the Spring Bay settlement among the first ; a few years later in the settlement at Partridge Point, or Metamora, as it was afterward called, and in the Low Point Settlement with the very earliest. Some of the survivors of this settlement are of opinion that Dale built the first cabin in Cazenovia Township ; but from other and more definite information, we are inclined to accredit the building of the first house to Hubbard, as already noted.
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
By decade
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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 Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.
