What’s New

The Williamson County Historical Society held a membership meeting on Sunday, October 25^th, 2026 at the museum/library at 105 S. Van Buren St. in Marion.

During the meeting, WCHS president Sam Lattuca went over projects undertaken at the museum & library since the last meeting, artifacts taken in, upcoming projects and the state of the museum.  Board officers for 2027 were elected and consist of Sam Lattuca, President, Andrew McRoy and Gloria Spinks, 1^st and 2^nd Vice Presidents, Mike Spinks, Treasurer, Candy Calcaterra, Secretary, and Charla Murphy, Director for 3 more years. Also serving on the board, but not subject to reelection this year are Helen Lind and Leann Johnson.

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Students along with one of their teachers and a group of parents toured the Williamson County Historical Society on Friday, October 23^rd, 2026. Curator/Coordinator for the historical society, Sharon Vansaghi, conducted the tour for the students. The students were members of the Ambleside School, a private school, in Marion, Illinois. The children were shown artifacts throughout the museum that everyday people used to rely on for everyday survival back in earlier times as well as our collection of Native American artifacts.

The museum is open for group or individual tours at no charge in addition to being available for genealogical or historical research and is open currently from Wednesday thru Saturday from 9:30 till 3:00 P.M. Contact can be made by phone (618-997-5863 or email (wchsmail@yahoo.com.)

The Williamson County Historical Society will be holding a membership meeting on Sunday, October 25^th , 2026 here at the museum/library at 2:00 P.M.

During the meeting we will be going over projects undertaken at the museum & library since the last meeting, accessions taken in, upcoming projects and the state of the museum. The program will be given by Williamson County resident Dave Hurt who will be discussing the historic Mitchell and Roberts families of Corinth Township.

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We have now added the Zion Evangelical United Church of Christ Family Register covering the years 1888-1937 to our Master Misc. County Records indexing. The church is located in Marion, Illinois and was formed primarily out of German families.

A traveling exhibit entitled “The Deep Roots of the Prairie State,” was installed at the Marion Carnegie Library on August 18^th, 2026 and will remain on display until the end of September. To kick off the event, the library requested that WCHS president, Sam Lattuca, come and give an opening talk on the subject which occurred on the opening day of the exhibit at 6 P.M.

The exhibit covers a range of humanity that have occupied the state since the end of the last ice age about 12,500 years ago and tracks all of the periods of indigenous evolution right up to the early pioneer and settlement days. The exhibit is open to the public any time the library is open and is sponsored by the Illinois Prairie Research Institute through the University of Illinois.

In the days before there was a “New route 13,” all westbound vehicle traffic left Marion by way of a two-laned paved road we now call “Old 13.”

Where this Route 13 was intersected by Route 148, which came south from Herrin, the westbound road split in two. One lane veered off toward the north in a curving path shaped somewhat like the letter “Y.” This type of interchange was therefore commonly known as “the wye.”

South of this wye, the sprawling and secret Illinois Ordnance Plant was built. The plant manufactured ammunition for the Allies during World War II. The route 13/148 intersection was its main entrance. Older residents can still remember the security police gatehouse and barriers standing across the road there, during the 1940’s.

Today, the ammunition factory grounds, once known as “Ordill,” have been incorporated into the Crab Orchard Wildlife Refuge.

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We recently finished working on old court records that were left over from our original accounting of early court records in our possession. It was found that we had about 1,950 court records of a miscellaneous nature. Those records have now been sorted and indexed into two categories.

The first group is strictly related to land deeds and mortgages and consists of all type of deeds, including quit claim, warranty, tax, sheriff’s  and administrator’s deeds along with property mortgage records. There were 4,395 names entered in this group

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The Williamson County Historical Society held a membership meeting on Sunday, July 26^th at the museum/library at 105 S. Van Buren St. Society president, Sam Lattuca, brought the membership and guests up to speed on the society’s past and upcoming projects, in addition to showing them the latest accessions that were brought into the museum.  Lattuca stated that the photo database in use at the museum now sits at 12,372 photos in the collection and the index of names used for research at the museum has risen to 625,967 entries.

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