Old Shawneetown, Illinois
human settlement in Illinois, United States of America
Old Shawneetown is a village in Shawnee Township, Gallatin County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2020 census, the village had a population of 113, down from 193 at the 2010 census. Located along the Ohio River, Shawneetown served as an important United States government administrative center for the Northwest Territory. The village was devastated by the Ohio River flood of 1937. The village's population was moved several miles inland to New Shawneetown.
History
At least one record suggests that a village was established here by the Pekowi Shawnee led by Peter Chartier about 1758. In early November 1803, Lewis and Clark are believed to have stopped at Old Shawneetown on their way to Fort Massac, just down the Ohio River.
After the American Revolution, Shawneetown served as an important United States government administrative center for the Northwest Territory. Shawneetown and Washington, D.C., share the distinction of being the only towns chartered by the United States government.
Old Shawneetown is the site of the first bank chartered in Illinois, in 1816.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Old Shawneetown, Illinois” is human settlement in Illinois, United States of America. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Shawneetown, Illinois and human, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2597931. Authority coordinates are 37.698, -88.137. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 2010, 1937 and 1758.
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This entry incorporates text from “Old Shawneetown, Illinois” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.