Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Waltonville, IL

Waltonville grew out of a string of small settlements in southwestern Jefferson County, beginning with Mill Town, where Eli Gilbert dammed Rayse Creek in 1840 and built a saw mill, grist mill and store.

The neighboring settlement of Williamsburg was platted in 1867 just north of the present village, and the area's post office was renamed the Laur Post Office after Capt. Joseph Laur, who commanded a local company in the Civil War.

Waltonville itself began as a small store owned by Rob Mannen and was named for his mother, Eliza A. Walton Mannen.

The town took off in 1893 with the completion of a rail line from Mount Vernon to Chester — now part of the Union Pacific system — and Williamsburg moved down to the new rail depot.

Waltonville was incorporated on May 17, 1911, and the 2020 census counted 408 people living in 178 households in the village.

For many years Waltonville was the smallest town in the United States to have a Universalist Church, a congregation that had existed in Williamsburg before 1870 and moved to Waltonville before 1906.

Underground coal mines around Waltonville drew immigrant miners, mainly from Poland, and by the 1950s the rural areas west of the village were predominantly Polish-speaking; many residents still identify as Polish and attend St. Barbara's Catholic Church in nearby Scheller.

Waltonville is unusual for a small village in that it sits at the corner of four townships — Bald Hill, Blissville, McClellan and Elk Prairie — and its water tower stands atop the steep hill, or knob, that gave Knob Prairie its name.

Illinois Route 148 runs through the village, which lies about 13 miles southwest of Mount Vernon, the Jefferson County seat, and Waltonville is part of the Mount Vernon Micropolitan Statistical Area.