During the summer of 1907 it was rumored that a coal mine would be sunk on land owned by W.H. Holland, in the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 28 of Corinth Township. The land was under lease to the coal company and the mine was planned. The C.C.C. and St. L. Railroad, also called the Big Four, had agreed to build a track to the mine. The Marion and Eastern Railroad ran nearby.
1908 Alleghany Plat Map
Holland was fired by the image of a town as big as Herrin located on his farm. He hired W.T. Pierce, a civil engineer, to lay out 69 blocks of 12 lots each, August 24, 1907. The plat was named Allegheny and was recorded in Plat Book 3, page 108. The Marion and Eastern Railroad put up a shed depot at Allegheny.
Allegheny never became a reality. The mine was never sunk. The railroad spur was never laid, no house was ever erected and no business ever established. The land was vacated back into farmland .May 12, 1910 and recorded in Miscellaneous Records Book 9, page 411. The community is still called Allegheny.
(Ghost Towns of Southern Illinois, by Glenn J. Sneed, published 1937)