History · Avoca

Avoca’s history is
mostly unwritten

The public archives hold no old photos of Avoca. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.

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The story

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The name Avoca was given to the area by Nicholas Hefner, and means “the meeting of the waters,” the two branches of the Vermilion River uniting in this township.

The first permanent settler in the township was Isaac Jourdan, who came with his wife from Brown County, Illinois in December 1830. There were but two other families in Livingston County at that time. Four more families settled in the area the following spring – William Popejoy, John Hanneman, Uriah Blue and Abner Johnson.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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By decade

Avoca, decade by decade

Before
2000

No old photos in the archives yetWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

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National Register of Historic Places

Nothing in Avoca is on the National Register yet

That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Avoca has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is Thomas A. Beach House in Fairbury, 4.1 miles away.