Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Unions, Organized Labor?
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Surely
- Was there an ordinance?
- Perhaps, Some Oral Evidence
- Sign?
- Perhaps, Some Oral Evidence
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
- Probably Not, Although Still Very Few Black People
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | ||||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | ||||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | 8287 | |||||||
| 2000 | 7982 | 7798 | 38 | |||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Other
Main Ethnic Group(s)
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
When I was a gradeschooler I remember being told by someone in the community about an old law that blacks had to leave town by sundown. Supposedly there had been a knife fight (I think set in the 20’s) between a black man and a white man, and “for the sake of all concerned” blacks “used to” have to be out of town when it got dark. As a child I took that to mean that it was for the protection of both races. (From a local resident, accessed in 2003)
Wabash Valley Jr. College: U of IL basketball coach Lou Henson had a couple of black HS prospects who needed academic seasoning, so he sent them to a friend of his, coaching at Wabash Valley Jr. College, in Mt. Carmel, hoping to enroll them at teh U of I later. One dated a white girl, and friction ensued, and all the black basketball players left Wabash Valley.