TILTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY
201 W 5th Street
Tilton is a village in Danville Township, Vermilion County, Illinois, United States. It is part of the Danville, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,724 at the 2010 and 2,647 in 2018.
It is named after Charles Tilton, a friend of Abraham Lincoln, who worked for the railroads. Lincoln reputedly had Thanksgiving dinner at Tilton’s house in the village in the 1850s.
Tilton has a proud history, built with hard work, strong family ties and the spirit of everyone who has lived in Tilton. Tilton was first platted in 1854 as the town of Bryant, after an assistant named Bryant, who worked for Mr. Catlin who already had a town named after him. The town was also called the "Town of Carbon", and plated in 1858 as the "Town of Tilton", by the Chicago Carbon Coal Company. Tilton began as a mining village in 1855 and later became a large railroad terminal. By 1905, these enterprises were lost, but Tilton has continued to strive and today has almost 3000 residents and continues to be a center of activity for business growth, while maintaining the small town lifestyle that so many residents have become accustom to.
NOTABLE PEOPLE:
Thank you for visiting and click below to see the photos.
History Photos (Click on Small Photos to Enlarge)
We hope that the History page will evolve with more information and photos for you to enjoy. We have included some history photos from Tilton and encourage visitors to e-mail us more photos at [email protected].
**Text and photos courtesy of Priscilla Miller, the Tilton Historical Society, and the Tilton Centennial Book published in 1984.