Lovington, IL

Lovington is a Moultrie County village named for Andrew Love, the area's first postmaster. The first building, James Kellar's Black Horse Tavern, went up in 1838 along the old Springfield Road, where the Decatur and Paris Stage Line passed three times a day. That road's path now follows parts of Illinois Routes 32 and 133, so the village's early story is still visible in the way traffic moves through town. Lovington incorporated in 1873, after the stage stop had grown into a settled community.

The village sits in northern Moultrie County, about nine miles north of Sullivan and eight miles southeast of La Place. Lovington High School's 1909 building was torn down after the high school closed in 2012 and the district joined the Arthur system; students now attend Arthur Lovington Atwood Hammond High School. The 2020 census counted 1,069 residents. Route 32, the old tavern site, and the school district's changing shape give Lovington a clear sense of a farming village adapting to the institutions around it.