Ullin, Illinois

Ullin, in Pulaski County near the Cache River, grew up as a stop on the Illinois Central Railroad. A post office arrived in eighteen fifty-six, and the following year the village was platted. The name is a mystery with two competing explanations.

Some records point to the Gaelic poems of the legendary bard Ossian, where Ullin appears as a character in third-century verse that was enormously popular in the eighteen hundreds. Others say it was simply named for the first postmaster, Samuel Ulen. Either way, the Illinois Central Railroad locked it in before eighteen fifty-five, and Ullin incorporated in nineteen hundred.

It remains a quiet crossroads in far southern Illinois, close to where the Cache River empties toward the Ohio.