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History · Woodlawn

Woodlawn’s post office opened in 1870

Most of Woodlawn was built recently: 5% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1984. Below: maps from 1943 on and the census since 1900.

1870first post office
0on the National Register
5%homes built before 1940
1famous people
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Quick answers

How Woodlawn began

When was Woodlawn founded?

1870

The Woodlawn post office opened in 1870, the earliest record of the town by name. Wikidata gives 1876.

First census: 350 in 19002020 census: 617156 years
Founding year: the first Woodlawn post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Wikidata: 1876.

What stands out about Woodlawn’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Woodlawn are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Shrank, then grewLost a third of its people between 1900 and 1960, then more than doubled.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Woodlawn’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Woodlawn’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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People over time

Woodlawn, census by census

01002003004005006007001900192019401960198020002020350 in 1900Low: 241

Lost a third of its people between 1900 and 1960, then more than doubled.

13 censuses, 1900–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Woodlawn’s Wikipedia page.

The story so far

Woodlawn, in brief

Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Woodlawn yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.

Woodlawn is a village in Jefferson County, Illinois, United States. The population was 617 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Mount Vernon Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Its first post office opened in 1870. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 698 to 617 (-12%).

Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.

From the old history books

What they wrote about Woodlawn in 1909

Passages that mention Woodlawn, cut from the printed page as they were published.

cational and religious, Shiloh has always been considered the leader and example, whilst others have followed. It had the first and best schools and churches and from the very start, Shiloh seemed well supplied with teachers and preachers. Woodlawn, a lively village on the Louisville & Nashville Ra…
Wall's history of Jefferson County, Illinois1909 · page 191Read the page →
Read the text

cational and religious, Shiloh has always been considered the leader and example, whilst others have followed. It had the first and best schools and churches and from the very start, Shiloh seemed well supplied with teachers and preachers. Woodlawn, a lively village on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, lies principally in Shiloh township (it laps over a little into Casner) and is a town of good business interests and two railroads, for it now has a line of the great Chicago, Burlington & Quincy running through it north and

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The post-office at other towns in the county have had some of the same experiences as Mount Veriion. Dix, Woodlawn, Waltonville, Bonnie, Ina, Belle Rive, Opdyke, Bluford, Marlow and Emmerson City, all have well conducted post-offices, most of them operating rural routes. Most of the cross roads pos…
Wall's history of Jefferson County, Illinois1909 · page 245Read the page →
Read the text

The post-office at other towns in the county have had some of the same experiences as Mount Veriion. Dix, Woodlawn, Waltonville, Bonnie, Ina, Belle Rive, Opdyke, Bluford, Marlow and Emmerson City, all have well conducted post-offices, most of them operating rural routes. Most of the cross roads post-offices have given away to those rural routes, which serve all the people better than did the offices. The one thing needed to perfect this mail service in Jefferson county, is good roads, so that none of the routes may he

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

Woodlawn, 1870 to 2010

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1870Post officeThe Woodlawn post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1943On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  5. 1953Born hereAva Cherry is born here
  6. 21st century
  7. 2010CensusPopulation peaks at 698
By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

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On the map

Woodlawn on the map, 1943 to 1974

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Woodlawn. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Woodlawn on the 1943 USGS mapWoodlawn on the 1974 USGS map1943Ashley sheet · 1:62,500

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Woodlawn.

Questions about Woodlawn’s history

What year was Woodlawn founded?

The Woodlawn post office opened in 1870, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records). Wikidata gives 1876.

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

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Sources

Where this page comes from

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, 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.