Free Frank McWorter moved to Illinois in 1830 with his family and founded a town which he thought would benefit from the commerce along the planned Illinois and Michigan Canal. The original town plan consisted of 144 lots in a 12 x 12 square, including 22 crisscrossing named streets. McWorter officially registered his town with government authorities and sold the lots to both blacks and whites. The town was integrated, with blacks and whites involved together in community organizations, except only a typical 19th-century segregated cemetery. There was one integrated public school.