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Ford County, Illinois

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

18newspaper titles

0digitized titles

5historic places

1800earliest paper

1859formed

13,534pop. 2020

19cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The Library of Congress U.S. Newspaper Directory lists 18 newspaper titles published in Ford County, Illinois, with the earliest starting in 1800. None of these titles are currently digitized on Chronicling America. The National Register of Historic Places includes 5 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1980. Most listings are in or near Paxton, Gibson City.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers published in Ford

Library of Congress

18 newspaper titles

Title	Place	Years
Daily Courier	Gibson City	1800–1899
Eastern Illinois Register	Paxton	1800–1999
The Ford County Journal	Paxton	1859–1899
The Ford County Union	Paxton	1861–1899
The Ford County Journal	Paxton	1872–1899
The Gibson Courier	Gibson City	1874–1934
Ford County Blade	Paxton	1876–1876
Ford County News	Paxton	1877–1878
Melvin Transcript	Melvin	1890–1999
The Melvin Motor	Melvin	1908–1952
The Gibson Courier and Gibson City Enterprise	Gibson City	1934–1940
The Gibson City Courier	Gibson City	1941–1980
Ford County Press	Melvin, Roberts	1952–?
Courier	Gibson City	1980–1984
Gibson City Courier	Gibson City	1984–?
Ford County Chronicle		2020–?
Daily Carnival Courier	Gibson City	?–
Loda Times	Paxton, Loda	?–

Source: Library of Congress U.S. Newspaper Directory. “Digitized” links lead to page images on Chronicling America.

Coverage timeline

Newspapers

Each bar is one title’s publication span. brown = digitized on Chronicling America Open-ended runs extend to today.

18001856191319692026

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

3 of 5 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

5 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Dunnan-Hampton House	Paxton	Building	2007
Paxton Carnegie Public Library	Paxton	Building	2002
Paxton First Schoolhouse	Paxton	Building	1980
Paxton Water Tower and Pump House	Paxton	Building	1984
Phillips, Alfred, House	Gibson City	Building	1999

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Ford was formed in 1859 (1859-04-05) from unknown / original county.

FORD created from Non-County Area 4 attached to VERMILION.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Ford County population from 1860 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1860	1880	1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
1,979	15,099	18,359	16,466	15,007	15,901	16,606	15,265	14,241	13,534

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

19 cemeteries and 0 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 19 of 19 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Brenton Cemetery	40.74843	-88.20378
Drummer Township Cemetery	40.45953	-88.38157
Farmersville Cemetery	40.42753	-88.22699
Glen Cemetery	40.4496	-88.09123
Hall Cemetery	40.41457	-88.07729
Meharry Cemetery	40.47244	-88.16985
Melvin Cemetery	40.58498	-88.24615
Mona Township Cemetery	40.90416	-88.18656
Mount Hope Cemetery	40.58917	-88.39669
Mount Olivet Cemetery	40.41009	-87.98999
Oregon Cemetery	40.47017	-88.25788
Pells Park	40.45817	-88.08752
Pleasant Grove Cemetery	40.40642	-87.98393
Pontoppidan Cemetery	40.42882	-88.24717
Prospect Cemetery	40.44543	-88.09729
Saint Joseph Cemetery	40.99481	-88.22772
Ten Mile Grove Cemetery	40.45188	-88.15352
Trickle Grove Cemetery	40.41512	-88.03122
Waggoner Cemetery	40.4122	-88.29657

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Ford County, Illinois

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.