When the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad was built in the 1890s, a station was established in section 12 of Southern Township. Land bordering the right of way was the Zachariah Hudgens’ farm. The station was named Hudgens. The Hudgens farmhouse burned in 1897. The village of Hudgens was surveyed May 22, 1899 and was recorded in the Book of Deeds One page 67, June 17, 1899. It contained 222 lots located in the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 12, of Southern Township. Main Street was 80 feet wide and all others were 50 feet wide.
Mr. Hudgens erected a building in which he had a store and his Justice of the Peace office. He secured Hudgens Post Office in the store May 18, 1900, and his clerk, Earnest H. Moulton, was postmaster. Thus, Hudgens became a trading center and a local seat of justice, during the first score years of the century.
The village was not vigorously promoted and all the activities centered around Mr. Hudgens. As he grew older and less active, the town grew less lively. Then Mr. Hudgens was killed by a locomotive in Marion. When he died the village died. The post office closed March 14, 1931. The trading post did not survive the Great Depression. Today nothing remains except the shade tree that stood in front of the store. The sight of the village is now farmland.
(Ghost Towns of Southern Illinois, by Glenn J. Sneed, published 1977)