Illinois
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?
- Yes, Strong Oral Tradition
- 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 | 1616 | |||||||
| 2000 | 1580 | 1563 | 3 | |||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
Main Ethnic Group(s)
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
My speculation is that it must have come from the sayings, official or unofficial, “Be out of town by sundown” or “Don’t let the sun set on your ass, nigger,” according to who was talking or what was written. Maybe not, but I heard those things being said in the stories I heard as a kid growing up in Crawford County.
One time when I made the comment to my Grandmother about how racist my father was (he died in 78) she said that “he didn’t have much of a chance, there used to be a sign at the edge of town that said that Persons of Color had to be out of town before dark”.