The Zanesville Township post office opened in 1839, the earliest record of the town by name. Two smaller post offices, Zanesville (1839) and Shop Creek (1858), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
2020 census: 443187 years
Founding year: the first Zanesville Township post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).
What stands out about Zanesville Township’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Zanesville Township yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Zanesville is a former unincorporated community in Zanesville Township, Montgomery County, Illinois, United States. Zanesville is 4.4 miles (7.1 km) west of Raymond, and just west of the Raymond exit from Interstate 55. The community was originally located around 39°20′13″N 89°41′02″W, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of its later location. After the Zanesville station was established and what was left of the community moved there, this original location became known as "Old Zanesville". The community began with a tavern established around 1824 on the stagecoach road from Vandalia to Jacksonville. When first platted in 1828, the community was named Leesburg after a St. Louis merchant by the na…
Its first post office opened in 1839. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 491 to 443 (-10%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
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.
Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
The U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Zanesville Township.
1923Raymond 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 Zanesville Township.
Famous people
Famous people close to Zanesville Township
Nobody well known was born in Zanesville Township itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
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) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
