Posen is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Bolo Township, Washington County,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

, United States. Posen is southeast of

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

. Since 1901, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, a member of the

Diocese of Belleville The Diocese of Belleville () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in the Southern Illinois region of the United States. It is a suffragan see in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Roman Cath ...

has been located here. As with many small homestead communities, little documentation of Posen exists online despite historical and local significance. The community was named after Poznań, Poland because much like the rest of Washington County, Posen was settled entirely by Poles, some of whom were secular Polish Jews before converting to Roman Catholicism. Having dwindled in population with time, the only remaining buildings apart from the Roman Catholic parish are a handful of residential homes, an old storefront converted into a residential unit, a large graveyard of the parishioners and pioneers, the Bolo Township Hall, and an alpaca farm. The original church structure was replaced in the late 1960s.

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References

Unincorporated communities in Washington County, Illinois Unincorporated communities in Illinois {{WashingtonCountyIL-geo-stub