Johnson County Genealogical & Historical Society

03/25/2026

Our Society has gotten permission to reprint the 1989 Johnson County Illinois History and Families, compiled by the early Johnson County Historical Society. This book is a tremendous biographical and genealogical resource and is becoming difficult to find and very expensive. However, before we dive into our reprint order, we are interested in taking pre-orders, which will help determine our order quantity. This 368-page book will be full-size, with a soft cover (simply to help control costs), and will be in the $80 to $90 range. We do not need any money now--just your name and contact information. Please write us at [email protected] and let us know the quantity that you would be interested in!

03/23/2026

As the weather turns nice, consider taking a scenic drive on the backroads of Johnson County to drive through history itself. Looking for some place to start? Parker City Road, off of Creal Springs Road, was once the home of a settlement called Parker City. At its peak, Parker City was home to 300 residents, two hotels, two stores, a post office, restaurants, and two barbershops (Gale, 2022). Parker City Road is now the home to Clad and Cordon Vineyard.

03/11/2026

On March 15th at 2:30 in the community room at the Vienna Public Library, historian Mark Motsinger will share new and exciting discoveries concerning his research into the stone forts of southern Illinois.

11/04/2025

The Johnson County Genealogical & Historical Society will host an event on Sunday, November 16, 2025, at the Vienna Library Community Room at 2:30pm, featuring a modern demonstration of quilt-turning, with quilts displayed and a story about each
quilt.

Barbara Bauer, from Anna, will tell us about quilts that tell the stories of a variety of local interests, including the Trail of Tears, a local Iron Furnace, Miller’s Grove, the Lincoln-Douglas debate, the Underground Railroad, and many others. She will tell the story behind each quilt, including its history, patterns, and materials.

Barbara has spent most of her 90 years in the Anna and Union County area. Her deep family roots include a signer of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence and a member of the North Carolina Militia during the American Revolutionary War. Barbara loves to interpret the past to honor those who have gone before. Her travels with the Illinois 4-H led her to Michigan, where she met her husband of many years, Norman Bauer, on her way to serve as an International Farm Youth Exchange delegate to Turkish host families. Barb and “Norm” have 4 children, 10 grandchildren, and a 12th great-grandchild on the way.

Attendees are invited to bring that “special” quilt from your family and share with the group. Please come join us for the program, and refreshments afterward and consider joining our growing society.

10/22/2025

Get your tickets for the quilt raffle!

10/02/2025

Read this interesting article about Goreville!

At Ferne Clyffe State Park, the Goreville Boy Scout Trail is a difficult path to take. But its bizarre name is what gets hikers thinking.

09/29/2025

The Johnson County Genealogical & Historical Society held a Ribbon Cutting and Open House on Sunday, September 21. The ceremony was well-attended with tasty refreshments. Last fall, the Society moved from the Powell House to their new home at 120 North 4th Street, on the Square, in Vienna. The Society was formed in 1989, and has published a monthly newsletter since 1991. Many of which are member-authored and Society-published, over 75 books are offered for sale on history and genealogy subjects. The Society also has a Virtual Museum Theater, with restored seating from the Grand Theater, offering a side variety of Johnson County videos.

Annual membership in the Society is $20, and the plan is to begin loading past newsletters and over 6,000 photos that will be accessible to members only through the website johnsonctyilgenhist.org. Members also get discounts on books for sale. Please visit our website, our page, or stop by during our Open Hours Friday 1-4pm and Saturday 9-12 noon.

The Society offers both Spring and Fall monthly programs, which are open to the public, and are typically held at the Vienna Library Community Room at 2:30pm on the third Sunday. The October program meeting will be held 10/19 with Jon Musgrave speaking on the Civil War in Johnson County. Please mark your calendar and attend.

09/13/2025

The Pope County Historical Society invites you to join us Tuesday, September 23rd at 6pm as Seth Graves, local historian and principal of Pope County High School, provides an interesting program. Seth will present in 1st Person as Dwight Moody, 19th Century Theologian and member of the US Christian Commission during the American Civil War. He will tell of the war effort from a civilian and USCC point of view as well as discuss the abolitionist movement. The presentation will be at the Pope County Historical Society Museum meeting room, Golconda, IL and will be live streamed on the Pope County Historical Society The Packet on Facebook.

09/08/2025

We hope to see you here!

08/22/2025

When thinking of big cities in Johnson County, New Burnside (current population 152 per the U.S. Census) might not be the first town to come to mind. However, at its peak in 1879, the population of New Burnside was somewhere between 1500-2000 people! The New Burnside Methodist Church at one point consisted of seven different church buildings that were all tended to by one preacher. Also present was the New Burnside Baptist Church, the New Burnside Christian Church, and the Catholic Church of New Burnside. The town has had a rich history of businesses, including (not necessarily all at one time), a grocery store, a barber shop, a general store (with an upper level apartment complex), a doctor's office and drug store, a restaurant, a barrel factory, a post office, a furniture store, a clothing store, a marble shop, a two-story brick hotel, a bank, a grist mill, a depot building, a coal mine, and a thriving fruit farming industry. At one point, New Burnside even had its very own high school, and they were the IHSA district champions in 1937 and 1938! Some of you might have even attended this school, as it served grades 4-8 for years after before being discontinued in the early 1990s.

To learn more about New Burnside, we highly recommend the book The Biggest City in Little Egypt: A History of New Burnside, Illinois (1978) by N. E. Cross. You can get your own copy of this book at the society's museum for just $8! Additional information about New Burnside High School can be found at this link: https://illinoishighschoolglorydays.com/2022/03/03/new-burnside-high-school-hawks/

08/20/2025

Pope County Historical Society invites you to join us Tuesday, August 26th at 6pm in our museum meeting room in Golconda, IL for "Department of Defense MIA Recovery Mission."

This is a presentation on Army Air Corps SGT Alfonso Duran and the role of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) in the Department of Defense. Krist Thodoropoulos, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret), US Army, and former Senior Defense Official in Slovenia will discuss how the DPAA mission intersects across historic, diplomatic, and scientific realms to find and honor our nation's Service Members.

If you are not available to attend in person, the program will be livestreamed on Facebook on Pope County Historical Society-The Packet.

08/15/2025

Today is Relaxation Day, and it's not too late in the day to go relax in the beauty of Johnson County! While sites of local beauty like Ferne Clyffe, the Tunnel Hill State Trail, and Bell Smith Springs are pretty well known, today could be a great day to check out a lesser-known landmark: Belknap Cave! While not a "true" cave in the sense of the word, it is a lovely sandstone structure where kids from Belknap used to chisel their initials. Or, if spelunking isn't quite your style, there are always the much easier to access landmarks in our county as well.

Looking for a full inventory of all the natural landmarks of Johnson County? You can purchase Mr. Hutchison's book, A Gazetteer of Johnson County Illinois: An Inventory of Natural Landmarks and enjoy hundreds of pages of colored photos and descriptions of all of all the beauty Johnson County has to offer! This image is just one example of the pages in this book. Stop by the historical society museum and purchase a copy today!