In his 1990 monograph, Paper Counties, Dr. Sublett discussed 17 Illinois instances when a county that a general assembly had authorized failed at the local level to organize. Among the 17 was Audubon, which would have taken some of its 180 square miles from existing counties Shelby and Fayette, but mainly borrowed territory from Montgomery–where the county seat, the town of Audubon, stood. Using newly available information on the people who founded and promoted the town of Audubon, Dr. Sublett recently published an updated narrative about migration to the area from Massachusetts, 1830s land speculation, the significance of a Unitarian presence in Montgomery County, and the choice of name for county and town. Please see “Lost Illinois: Audubon, Audubon County,” Illinois Heritage 20 (May-June 2017): 20-24. The map below is from the 1990s monograph.
