Goreville, Illinois

Goreville, in Johnson County, sits on a high ridge in the Shawnee Hills and carries the name of its founder. In eighteen fifty-four, John Gore bought land atop that ridge and opened a general store. The spot became a voting and trading place for the surrounding farms.

A post office followed in eighteen sixty-six, named in Gore's honor. The village grew slowly, adding stores, a doctor, and a blacksmith before the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad arrived about a mile northeast of town in eighteen ninety-eight. Goreville officially incorporated in nineteen hundred with four hundred six residents.

Today it serves as a gateway community for nearby Ferne Clyffe State Park, its wooded ridgeline country still very much the draw.