Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near West Sullivan Sullivan, IL

Sullivan is the county seat and largest city of Moultrie County, one of the smallest counties in Illinois.

Sullivan was founded on March 7, 1845, as Asa's Point, and it is named after Sullivan's Island in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, where Fort Moultrie stands.

The first Moultrie County courthouse was built in Sullivan in 1847, and Abraham Lincoln passed through it many times from 1849 to 1852 while practicing law on the circuit court.

During his 1858 Senate campaign, Lincoln spoke in Freeland's Grove - now Wyman Park, where a monument marks the spot - and that same year a riot broke out on the courthouse square between Lincoln and Douglas supporters who were both scheduled to speak.

Sullivan had 4,413 residents at the 2020 census, and Census Bureau survey estimates put the city at roughly 1,836 households.

The Titus Opera House, built in 1871 with an auditorium that could seat up to 800 patrons, was Sullivan's entertainment centerpiece until it burned to the ground on February 20, 1910.

Sullivan is famous across central Illinois for The Little Theatre on the Square, the professional theatre Guy S. Little Jr. founded in 1957, whose stage has hosted performers including Leonard Nimoy, Alan Alda, Mickey Rooney and Betty Grable.

Sullivan is home to the Illinois Masonic Home, a longtime landmark institution of the Masonic order in Illinois.

Richard J. Oglesby, who went on to become governor of Illinois, first hung out his shingle as an attorney in Sullivan.

Wyman Park, one of the city's main green spaces, was named for the pioneer shoe merchant who donated it.