Versailles’s history is
mostly unwritten
The public archives hold only 2 old photos of Versailles. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.
The story so far
from Wikipedia & the U.S. CensusVersailles is a village in Versailles Township, Brown County, Illinois, United States. The population was 336 at the 2020 census. The village's name is pronounced differently from the French city of the same name: vər-SAYLZ.
Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 478 to 446 (-7%). Half of its homes were built before 1938.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Versailles yet — the old photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Intro from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Population and housing: U.S. Census Bureau.
Start Versailles’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Versailles’s history is told.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🗓️Date a photo1 archive item has no date+2 🔁Retake an old viewTrain Tracks, Versailles, Illinoi…, 1879: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Versailles, decade by decade
unknown1 item
Nothing in Versailles is on the National Register yet
That’s true of most small towns. It doesn’t mean Versailles has no history, only that no one has written up a nomination. The closest listed place is La Grange Lock and Dam Historic District in Cooperstown, 7.8 miles away.
Versailles and the nearest listed places
How a place gets listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Train Tracks, Versailles, Illinois (approximately 1879) - DPLA - 86565334b85875b0ff2c01ec912e661c (1879) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (1) and the Library of Congress (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.