Petersburg, IL

Petersburg is Menard County’s seat, an Illinois city of 2,258 residents in the 2020 census perched on bluffs above the Sangamon River and spilling into its floodplain. George Warburton and Peter Lukins founded the town in 1833, and Abraham Lincoln surveyed the original lots in 1835–36. When Menard County formed in 1839, Petersburg became the county seat; the courthouse, county offices, downtown square, Victorian houses, and bits of cobblestone still make that early civic role visible. New Salem is the larger story just south of town. The restored village where Lincoln lived and worked in the 1830s is now a state historic site, with interpreters, walking tours, reenactments, theater, and trails.

Petersburg carries its own layer through the Masters Memorial Museum, local parks, outdoor concerts, seasonal festivals, and the businesses around the square. The Sangamon bluffs, floodplain, and nearby New Salem State Park make the town’s geography part of the history. The local scoop is a county seat that grew from Lincoln-era surveying and still lives with the river, the courthouse square, and New Salem just down the road.