Brownsville, Illinois Ghost Town: History and Where It Stood

Overview

A county seat at the salt springs

When Jackson County was created in 1816, the act said its seat would be called Brownsville before anyone had chosen a site. Conrad Will, a doctor from Pennsylvania who had leased the Big Muddy salt springs, offered 20 acres beside his works, and the commissioners took it. Will pumped brine with horse power into a row of iron kettles over a long wood-fired furnace, at 125 gallons of water to a bushel of salt, and shipped the salt to Kaskaskia, St. Louis and New Orleans. The 1935 history says he brought slaves from Kentucky to work the kettles.

The town was off the main roads and hard to reach, but for years it was the only town in the county. A post office opened in 1817. Courts sat in a two-story frame courthouse on the square, which also served as the school, and the militia mustered on the green. A branch of the state bank opened here. Sidney Breese, later a U.S. senator, lost his first lawsuit at Brownsville, and Alexander Jenkins, later lieutenant governor, worked here as a carpenter. A pioneer quoted in 1935 thought the town held four or five hundred people around 1834, and the 1935 history says only Kaskaskia and Shawneetown were larger in Illinois then.

Will died in 1834 or 1835 and his salt works closed. Settlers farther north, west and east wanted a seat nearer the middle of the county. Then, soon after midnight on January 10, 1843, the courthouse burned with almost all the records. That August the county seat went to land given by Dr. John Logan, the start of Murphysboro. People moved there, some taking their houses apart and carrying them along, and within a few years the town was gone.

Timeline

Salt, a courthouse and a fire

1813–1815Conrad Will, a Pennsylvania doctor, leases the Big Muddy Saline from the government and moves to the salt springs in 1815. In 1816 he brings thirty 60-gallon iron kettles by flatboat from Pittsburgh.
1816The territorial act creating Jackson County says its seat will be called Brownsville. Will offers 20 acres near his salt works for the site. The 1928 address dates the laying out of the town to 1818.
1817–1819A post office opens in 1817, and the town is incorporated in 1819.
1825The town is platted. The plat is later lost in the courthouse fire and restored.
About 1834A pioneer quoted in the 1935 history puts the town at four or five hundred people at its peak, with stores, carpenter, blacksmith and wagon shops, a tannery and flatboat trade on the river.
1834 or 1835Conrad Will dies at Brownsville and is buried there. The 1878 history gives June 11, 1834; the 2016 state marker gives 1835. The 1935 history says the town began to decline from then.
1843The courthouse burns on the night of January 10, and most county records with it. In August the county seat moves to a 20-acre tract given by Dr. John Logan, which becomes Murphysboro. Many people move there, some taking their buildings with them.
1878The county history calls the site a wheat field with a few faint traces of the town.
1928Elbert Waller tells the Illinois State Historical Society of a visit to the site: heaps of stones, the old jail located, and an overgrown cemetery with stones from 1826 to 1844.
1935Will Husband places the town on the line between sections 2 and 3 of Sand Ridge Township and calls the site a wheat field.

What's left

Stones, a cemetery and a wheat field

The 1878 county history called the site a wheat field with a few faint traces. In 1928 State Representative Elbert Waller told the Illinois State Historical Society that he and four other men, with their families, had spent a day there. They found a few heaps of stones, located the old jail, and found the town cemetery grown up in woods. They read about ten stones dated 1826 to 1844, among them one for Polly Ann Glenn, dated 1833, that her brother Alexander Jenkins carved himself. G. A. Rathgeber of Murphysboro later found Conrad Will's grave in the same cemetery. Waller said the last house of the old town, the Manning house, had burned about five years before. The 1935 history again calls the site a wheat field with scarcely a trace left.

The Illinois State Genealogical Society's cemetery index lists a Brownsville cemetery in Sand Ridge Township, without a location. We found no report of the cemetery or the stone heaps since 1928, and no photographs.

The old maps don't help much. The 1910 and 1938 Murphysboro sheets show the Big Muddy bending through sections 1, 2 and 3, a railroad on each bank, and a highway along the ridge to the north, marked 144 on the 1910 sheet, the road the 1935 history says passes near the site. The 1968 and 1996 Oraville sheets label the same road Illinois 149 and show woods and fields on the north bank. None of them labels Brownsville or a cemetery here.

Heaps of stones (1928)
The old jail site, located in 1928
Town cemetery with stones from 1826 to 1844 and Conrad Will's grave (1928)
Nothing reported since 1935

USGS topographic map of the Big Muddy River bending below Illinois 149, with a rail line along its north bank — **USGS The National Map, topo.** Centered on our map point, where the line between sections 2 and 3 meets the north bank. Illinois 149 runs along the ridge at the top.

Aerial view of woods and small fields above the Big Muddy River, with a rail line along the bank — **Aerial imagery, same point.** Woods and hay fields on the slope above the river and the rail line.

Historic maps

Brownsville on USGS maps, 1910–1996

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on our best estimate of the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Brownsville, 1910 — **Murphysboro sheet, 1910, 1:62,500** · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Maps & access

Location and access

We don't give directions to Brownsville, because nobody has pinned down where it stood. Illinois 149 runs west from Murphysboro along the ridge north of the Big Muddy, above the stretch of river where the county histories put the town. We found no public access to the riverbank there and no source saying any of this land is public. Treat it as private, and ask before you walk onto it.

USGS topographic map of the Big Muddy River west of Murphysboro, with the points the sources give for Brownsville marked

Where exactly was it?

No source since 1935 says where Brownsville stood, and the ones we have don't agree. The two county histories put it on the north bank of the Big Muddy (the 1878 one says the right bank, which is the north bank on this stretch): the 1878 history nearly five miles a little south of west of Murphysboro, and the 1935 history on the line between sections 2 and 3 of Sand Ridge Township, about five miles west of Murphysboro. A 1928 address says about four miles west.

Wikipedia (read October 2026) gives two answers of its own. Its text says 3.25 miles due west of Murphysboro and 0.75 mile south of Illinois 149; its coordinates sit on Illinois 149 itself, about 1.8 miles east of the 1935 site. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library's Papers of Abraham Lincoln place page says the north bank too, but its coordinates, given only to the nearest minute, fall about 2.5 miles south-southwest of the 1935 site, in the river bottoms west of the Big Muddy beside the Sand Ridge settlement. None of the four USGS sheets we read, from 1910 to 1996, labels the town or a cemetery there, and we found no GNIS record.

Our map point is the 1935 description, plotted where the section line meets the river's north bank on the USGS topo map. It agrees with the north-bank sources and with the four to five miles they give. Treat it as a best guess within about half a mile.

1935 history 37.7676, -89.4167: Will Husband, Old Brownsville Days, 1935: on the north bank, on the line between sections 2 and 3 of Sand Ridge Township. Plotted where that section line meets the north bank on the USGS topo. Our best estimate. Map
Wikipedia point 37.7714, -89.3841: Wikipedia's coordinates, read October 2026. They sit on Illinois 149, north of the river. Map
Wikipedia text 37.7640, -89.3943: Wikipedia's text, read October 2026: 3.25 miles due west of Murphysboro and 0.75 mile south of Illinois 149. Plotted 3.25 miles due west of the Jackson County Courthouse, about half a mile south of the highway; the point falls on the river itself. Map
Lincoln Papers 37.7333, -89.4333: Papers of Abraham Lincoln place page, read October 2026: coordinates given to the nearest minute. They fall in the bottoms west of the river beside the Sand Ridge settlement, about 2.5 miles from the 1935 site. Map

Have you found it? If you know where Brownsville stood, a foundation, a cemetery, a marker, tell us where. We check every report against the old maps before we change this page.

Access and safety notes

No route is given: the townsite is uncertain, and we found no public land or access at any of the candidate points.

Photos

Have photos of Brownsville?

We haven’t added photographs of Brownsville yet. If you’ve visited, share your photos and a field report below.

Visitor reports

Did you find Brownsville?

We don't know exactly where Brownsville stood. If you have found the site, a foundation, the cemetery or a marker, tell us where: coordinates from your phone, or directions from the nearest road. Photos help. We check every report against the old maps before it appears here or changes the map.

Nearby

Other sites near Brownsville

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Illinois index.

Makanda13.5 mi SE · Jackson
Clifford18.9 mi E · Williamson
Chamness24.2 mi E · Williamson
Kaskaskia29.3 mi W · Randolph
Halfway32.8 mi E · Williamson
Tacaogane33.6 mi SE · Pulaski
Parker City36.6 mi E · Johnson
Shasta44.0 mi S · Alexander

Sources

Sources and credits

Wikipedia, "Brownsville, Jackson County, Illinois", read October 2026: former county seat near a salt creek running into the Big Muddy, the 1843 fire and move to Murphysboro, 3.25 miles west of Murphysboro and 0.75 mile south of Illinois 149, its coordinates, and its listing among Illinois ghost towns.
History of Jackson County, Illinois (Brink, McDonough & Co., Philadelphia, 1878), Internet Archive full text: the act naming Brownsville, Will's lease of the Big Muddy Saline and his gift of 20 acres, the courthouse and jail contracts, the 1825 plat, the site on the right bank nearly five miles a little south of west of Murphysboro, the wheat field and faint traces, Will's burial at Brownsville and death date, 125 gallons of brine to a bushel of salt, the 1843 fire and move.
Genealogy Trails, "Township Histories of Jackson County", transcribing the 1878 history's Sand Ridge Township chapter: Will at the salt works in 1815 and his burial at Brownsville.
Elbert Waller, "A History of Brownsville", an address to the Illinois State Historical Society, 1928, reprinted from the Ava Citizen by Jackson County ILGenWeb: about four miles west of Murphysboro, heaps of stones, the frame courthouse, the branch bank, Breese and Jenkins, the fire of January 10, 1843, the August 1843 election, the Manning house, the visit that located the jail and the cemetery, the stones read there, and Will's grave.
Will Husband, Old Brownsville Days (1935), excerpts on Jackson County ILGenWeb: Will's gift of 20 acres, the section 2 and 3 line in Sand Ridge Township, about five miles west of Murphysboro, Route 144 nearby, the 1816 founding, the population estimate and third-largest claim, the salt works, kettles and slave labor, the 1835 decline, the January 10, 1843, fire, Logan's 20 acres, and the wheat field.
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Papers of Abraham Lincoln, "Brownsville, Illinois", read October 2026: the 1817 post office, 1819 incorporation, the name from Judge Thomas C. Brown, the north bank south of Sand Ridge near the Big Muddy Saline lands, and coordinates 37.7333, -89.4333.
Illinois State Historical Society, "Conrad Will of Brownsville" marker, dedicated January 23, 2016, on the courthouse lawn in Murphysboro: Will's salt works, his 1816 gift of land for Brownsville, and his death in 1835.
Illinois State Genealogical Society, Illinois cemetery locations index, read October 2026: a Brownsville cemetery in Sand Ridge Township, Jackson County.
BLM, National PLSS (CadNSDI), queried October 2026: Township 9 South, Range 3 West, and the positions of sections 1, 2 and 3.
USGS historical topographic maps: Murphysboro 1910 and 1938 (1:62,500), Oraville 1968 and 1996 (1:24,000), read for a townsite, cemetery or label.
Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

Area base map, topo and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Murphysboro 1910, 1:62,500; Murphysboro 1938, 1:62,500; Oraville 1968, 1:24,000; Oraville 1996, 1:24,000.