Ashton, IL

Ashton is a Lee County village first known as Ogle Station. The name changed to avoid confusion with neighboring Ogle County. An April 9, 2015 tornado outbreak sent a satellite tornado near Ashton and produced a long-track EF4 that began in northern Lee County and continued through Ogle and DeKalb counties. The 2020 census counted 967 residents, placing Ashton in the scale of a small village with a weather history that reaches across the surrounding counties.

ATTRWayne Wilkinson / CC BY 2.0

Ashton-Franklin Center Community Unit School District 275 places its junior and senior high school in Ashton, while the elementary school is in Franklin Grove, giving the two villages a shared school network. The village's current map also includes Griffith Park and the Ashton Pavilion and Playground, with shelters, playgrounds, restrooms, and a splash pad. Village programming includes a summer garage sale, downtown cruise-in, Fall Fest, and Christmas Walk. Those events use downtown, parks, and Mills & Petrie Gymnasium as local gathering places, joining a renamed settlement to a school district and civic calendar shared with its neighbors.