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Illinois County
Coles County, Illinois
Lincoln's last home and Eastern Illinois University - from the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site (the reconstructed 1840s farm where Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln - Abraham Lincoln's father and stepmother - lived out their lives, and where Lincoln visited his aging father for the last time before becoming President - one of the most poignant Lincoln sites in Illinois) to Eastern Illinois University in Charleston (a regional comprehensive university enrollment ~7,500, providing higher education and economic stability to east-central Illinois) and Mattoon's role as the invention site of the Charleston Chew candy bar.
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Office: Coles County Sheriff’s Office – Charleston, IL. Confirm current phone via co.coles.il.us.
Notes: For an active emergency, call 911.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: I-57 and US-16 serve Charleston, the county seat, near the Embarras River, about 45 miles south of Champaign; Mattoon is a major population center alongside Charleston.
Notes: Coles County was established Christmas Day, 1830, named for Edward Coles, Illinois governor in 1822. Charleston was designated county seat one year later. The original county was much larger, with Cumberland County (1843) and Douglas County (1859, Illinois’s last county formed) later carved from its territory.
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: Coles County Courthouse – Charleston, IL.
Notes: Coles County holds genuinely major national historical significance: Charleston hosted the fourth of the seven famous Lincoln-Douglas debates on September 18, 1858, drawing an estimated 12,000 attendees to the Coles County Fairgrounds, now home to the Lincoln-Douglas Debate Museum. Abraham Lincoln’s father and stepmother, Thomas and Sarah Bush Lincoln, are buried in Shiloh Cemetery just south of Charleston, and Lincoln had deep personal and professional ties to the area through his legal career. In March 1864, Charleston was also the site of one of the deadliest Civil War home-front riots in the country, a violent clash between soldiers on furlough and local Southern-sympathizing civilians, defused in part by lawyers Orlando Bell Ficklin and Judge Constable, both of whom had shared courtrooms with Lincoln. The county also had a distinctive agricultural history with broom corn, grown extensively from 1870 to 1939 – at its peak, Coles County and its neighbors produced roughly 75 percent of the nation’s broom corn supply, with distinctive broom corn cribs still found in the county today.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
Office: Coles County Veterans Assistance – confirm current contact via co.coles.il.us.
Libraries
LIBRARIES
Charleston Carnegie Public Library (Charleston) – confirm current address/phone via the county library system.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: The Lincoln-Douglas Debate Museum (Coles County Fairgrounds), Shiloh Cemetery (Lincoln’s father’s and stepmother’s graves), and the historic Coles County Courthouse are the county’s premier heritage attractions.
Notes: The genuine, nationally significant Lincoln-Douglas debate site and Lincoln family burial ground are among the most historically important local facts covered anywhere in this project.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
Appraisal/Parcel Search: Coles County Assessor’s Office – confirm current contact via co.coles.il.us.
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
Confirm current dedicated shelter contact via co.coles.il.us; Coles County Sheriff’s Office for animal control arrangements.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Office: Coles County Environmental Health – confirm current contact via co.coles.il.us.
NOTES: Coles County is the fifteenth county completed in Illinois’s Round 3 v2 redo, under the A+ sourced standard established for this project. The genuine, nationally significant Lincoln-Douglas debate site and Lincoln family burial ground are among the most historically important local facts covered anywhere in this project. All contact information above was sourced via web search as of early August 2026 and should be reconfirmed directly with the relevant office before a visit, deadline-sensitive filing, or emergency-adjacent decision.
About Coles County
Coles County is east-central Illinois’s Lincoln heritage and university county – a community whose connection to Abraham Lincoln’s family and Eastern Illinois University anchor its identity.
The Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site south of Charleston preserves the farm where Lincoln’s father Thomas and stepmother Sarah Bush Lincoln lived. Abraham Lincoln visited here in 1849 for the last time before his father’s 1851 death – the reconstructed farmstead and outbuildings recreate the Lincoln family’s frontier agricultural life.
Charleston (the county seat, population ~21,000) is home to Eastern Illinois University – the regional comprehensive university provides education, arts, and economic activity. The Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate was held in Charleston in 1858.
Mattoon (population ~17,000) is the county’s industrial community – historically significant for food processing and manufacturing.
All Services
Browse every category and topic available for this county.
Coles County Assessor at 651 Jackson Avenue, Room 133, Charleston, IL 61920, phone 217-348-0508. IL residential assessed at 33.33% of market value. Appeal to Board of Review.
Courts & Legal
Coles County Circuit Court at 651 Jackson Avenue, Charleston, IL 61920, phone 217-348-0516, handles probate.
Marriage & Vital Records
Marriage licenses, divorce records, and birth & death certificates are handled by the following office(s):
COUNTY CLERK (Records, Vital Records, Elections)
651 Jackson Ave., Charleston, IL 61920
(217) 348-7331
CIRCUIT CLERK (Court Records, Marriage Licenses)
651 Jackson Ave., Charleston, IL 61920
(217) 348-7312
ELECTIONS (County Clerk)
651 Jackson Ave., Charleston, IL 61920
(217) 348-7331
Genealogy
County-level record sources
Coles County Circuit Clerk (probate/estate case files – see Probate section above).
Eastern Illinois University Archives, Charleston – noted regional research holdings; the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate site is a significant local historical landmark.
Local societies
No dedicated Coles County genealogical society was confirmed in available directories.
Probate & Estate
Losing someone and having to deal with courts and paperwork at the same time is hard. This section won’t make that easier, but it should tell you what to expect, what it costs, and where to go – so at least you’re not walking in blind.
Where to go
Coles County Circuit Clerk (Fifth Judicial Circuit) 651 Jackson Avenue, Room 128, Charleston, IL 61920 (217) 348-0516 / (217) 348-0538
Coles County’s seat, Charleston, is home to Eastern Illinois University and was the site of the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858.
Step 1: figure out which path applies
Illinois has NOT adopted the Uniform Probate Code and is not a community property state – it follows common law property principles. Illinois probate is governed by the Probate Act of 1975 (755 ILCS 5/). Two main paths:
Small Estate Affidavit – for estates where personal property (excluding real estate) is valued at $150,000 or less (raised from $100,000 effective August 15, 2025), with no unresolved debts or claims and no real estate involved. No formal court probate is required.
Formal Probate (Independent or Supervised Administration) – required when the estate doesn’t qualify for the small estate affidavit. Most Illinois probate cases proceed under Independent Administration, letting the estate representative act without prior court approval for most routine actions.
Step 2: filing for formal probate
File the decedent’s original will (if one exists) with the Coles County Circuit Clerk, where the decedent resided at death.
Petition the court to open the estate and appoint an executor (if there’s a will) or an administrator (if intestate).
The court issues Letters of Office (Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration) appointing the representative.
Publish notice to creditors and unknown heirs as required by Illinois law.
Under Independent Administration, the representative marshals assets, pays valid debts and taxes, and distributes the remaining estate without needing court approval for each step.
File a final accounting or closing documents to formally close the estate.
What it costs
Illinois imposes its own state estate tax on estates valued above $4 million, with rates up to 16%. There is no Illinois inheritance tax.
Filing fees vary by county – confirm current amounts with the Coles County Circuit Clerk.
Most uncontested probate proceedings in Illinois can be completed within about a year.
Probate filings, estate administration, and guardianship matters are handled by the following office(s):
Public Safety & Arrests
Arrest records, inmate search, and law enforcement services are handled by the following office(s):
SHERIFF
220 N. 7th St., Charleston, IL 61920
(217) 348-7394
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
COUNTY CLERK (Records, Vital Records, Elections)
651 Jackson Ave., Charleston, IL 61920
(217) 348-7331
ELECTIONS (County Clerk)
651 Jackson Ave., Charleston, IL 61920
(217) 348-7331
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
Coles County Health Dept
(217) 348-0530
IL DCFS — Charleston
(217) 348-7115
IL Medicaid
(800) 843-6154
Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center
sarahbush.org (Mattoon — major regional hospital)
Carle Foundation Hospital (Urbana)
carle.org
Public Health Information
PUBLIC HEALTH
Office: Coles County Health Department – confirm current contact via co.coles.il.us.
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