Thayer

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?

Probable

Was there an ordinance?

Don't Know

Sign?

Don’t Know

Year of Greatest Interest

Still Sundown?

Probably

Census Information

The available census data from 1860 to the present

	Total	White	Black	Asian	Native	Hispanic	Other	BHshld
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990	730
2000	750	743	1
2010
2020

Method of Exclusion

• Reputation

Main Ethnic Group(s)

Group(s) Excluded

• Black

Comments

email 1/2008 Auburn resident, 1971-89, reports Thayer is sundown:

I saw the information regarding your research of Sundown Towns in the current Teaching Tolerance magazine. There are not many central Illinois towns listed on your list and I most certainly grew up in a sundown town. Auburn, where I spent the first 23 years of my life, was an all white town…no other ethnic groups were present or allowed. There was a saying that “once the sun went down, no niggers were allowed in town.” Well, in all actuality, no black people were allowed in town at all; day or night. All three schools from K to 12, were all white the entire time I was there from 1977 to 1989. As far as I know, until just recently, that hadn’t changed. But Auburn was not the only town, there was Thayer, Virden, Divernon, Pawnee, Girard…and some smaller towns in between that most certainly had unwritten rules about black people. I just thought that I would add to your wealth of information and maybe you could do some more research into the towns in central Illinois.

Thayer is where my mother grew up. It is still mono-cultural there and a from what she has said, no blacks were ever allowed in and at times were chased out with guns for even driving through. The population is well under 1000 people still today.