Biohazard Cleanup Near South Equality Equality, IL

Equality is a village in Gallatin County that was officially established on January 26, 1826, as the county seat of Gallatin County, a role it held until 1851, when the county records were removed to Shawneetown.

Equality's first courthouse was built in 1827 for $1,300, and court was held there for nearly a quarter century.

Equality grew up beside the Great Salt Springs southeast of the village, where the French were making salt as early as the early 1700s and commercial salt production ran from about 1810 to 1873, at times producing as much as 500 bushels per day.

The saline springs near Equality were so important that the salt trade there was, for a time, the state of Illinois's single largest source of revenue, and salt workers were the one exception that allowed enslaved labor in early Illinois.

About five miles east of Equality stands the Crenshaw House at Hickory Hill, begun in 1838 by salt maker John Hart Crenshaw, who used it in his kidnapping and illegal slave-trading operation known as the Reverse Underground Railroad.

Near Equality are two notable points of interest, the Crenshaw House and the Garden of the Gods Wilderness in the Shawnee National Forest, famous for its sculpted sandstone formations.

The Gallatin Academy was established in Equality in 1836, with the Reverend Benjamin F. Spillman as its first teacher.

Equality had a population of 539 at the 2020 census, down from 595 in 2010 and 721 in 2000.

According to Census Bureau survey estimates, Equality has about 238 households in about 292 housing units.

Equality sits in western Gallatin County on the north side of the Saline River, a southeast-flowing tributary of the Ohio River.