Appleton is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

Persifer Township, Knox County, Illinois Persifer Township is one of twenty-one townships in Knox County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2010 census, its population was 980 and it contained 835 housing units. Geography According to the 2010 census, the township has a total area of , of whi ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Appleton lies approximately one mile north of

U.S. Highway 150 U.S. Route 150 (US 150) is a 571-mile (919 km) long northwest-southeast United States highway, signed as east–west. It runs from U.S. Route 6 outside of Moline, Illinois to U.S. Route 25 in Mount Vernon, Kentucky. Route description ...

and

Interstate 74 } Interstate 74 (I-74) is an Interstate Highway in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. Its western end is at an interchange with I-80 in Davenport, Iowa (Quad Cities); the eastern end of its Midwest segment is at an interchange ...

. Knox County Highway 12 runs from north to south through Appleton and the tracks of the BNSF Railway run east to west. Court Creek also flows through Appleton before its confluence with the

Spoon River The Spoon River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 tributary of the Illinois River in west-central Illinois in the United States. The river drains largely ...

in Dahinda.

History

Appleton was laid out by J. H. Lewis in the spring of 1888, on the S.E. 1-4 of Section 16. It is situated on the north side of the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...

and is a station on that road. In the early years of the time, Appleton became known for grain and stock exporting. The site of the original town today is empty except for several streets that served the town. Appleton formerly had a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

, as well as many homes and businesses but was prone to flooding. The size of the town shrank during much of the 20th century, and the final homes located in the original town were relocated to higher ground after the

Great Flood of 1993 The Great Flood of 1993 (or Great Mississippi and Missouri Rivers Flood of 1993) was a flood that occurred in the Midwestern United States, along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and their tributaries, from April to October 1993. The flood wa ...

. A

volunteer fire department A volunteer fire department (VFD) is a fire department of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. Volunteer and retained (on-call) firefighters are expected to be on call to respond ...

serves the Appleton area.

References

Ghost towns in Illinois Geography of Knox County, Illinois Populated places established in 1888 {{KnoxCountyIL-geo-stub