Kell, Illinois

Kell is a small village in Marion County, established in eighteen thirty-six, making it one of the older settlements in this part of southern Illinois. It sits in Haines Township, the kind of quiet agricultural community that sprouted across the region when pioneer families moved in from Kentucky and Tennessee, cleared the timber, and planted crops in the rich bottomland soil. The village never grew into anything large.

Its population today was about one hundred seventy-three at the last census. But it has persisted for nearly two centuries, a durable dot on the map that speaks to the stubborn staying power of small-town Illinois.