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Illinois County
Saline County, Illinois
Saline County's salt licks and Shawnee Hills coal heritage - from the historic salt licks that gave Saline County its name (French explorers documented the salt springs along the Saline River that Native Americans had used for centuries - the American Salines produced salt commercially from the early 19th century, and Lincoln himself worked at the Saline County salt works as a young man) to the Garden of the Gods Wilderness Area's proximity in the Shawnee National Forest and a southern Illinois coal mining county whose salt heritage predates American settlement.
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Office: Saline County Sheriff’s Office – 1 N. Main Street, Harrisburg, IL 62946; Sheriff elected 2018, 28 years in law enforcement. Executive Assistant Misty Fulkerson, Chief Deputy Jerod Campbell, Jail Administrator Brad Karnes. Jail capacity 110 beds.
Notes: For an active emergency, call 911. Saline County has a well-documented, decades-spanning local legend: the “Tuttle Bottoms Monster,” an ape-like, anteater-snouted creature reportedly sighted in the swampy bottomland north of Harrisburg. Former Harrisburg Police Chief Gary Crabtree told the local newspaper his department fielded roughly 50 reports over 28 years. The earliest known report, from August 6, 1963, involved Sheriff James L. Thompson responding to a group of armed teenagers searching for the “monster” before sending them home for the night – a story preserved in the Harrisburg Daily Register.
Roads & Utilities
ROADS & TRANSPORTATION
Roads: I-57 and SR-13 serve Harrisburg, the county seat and largest city.
Notes: Saline County was established in 1847 from parts of Gallatin, Johnson, Randolph, and Knox Counties, Illinois’s 99th county, named for the Saline River and the salt deposits found in the area. The first county seat was Raleigh, before Harrisburg became the permanent seat.
Business & Permits
BUILDING & PERMITS
Office: Saline County Courthouse – Harrisburg, IL (built 1967, the fifth courthouse to serve the county and third in Harrisburg).
Notes: Long before European settlement, Native American tribes including the Shawnee, Piankashaw, Quapaw, and Caddo produced salt from natural springs in the area, known as the “Great Salt Springs,” which Indians ceded to the United States by an 1803 treaty; the federal government, and later the state of Illinois after 1818, leased the salt works to individuals for royalty income rather than selling the land outright, until commercial extraction eventually became too costly to sustain. Coal mining later became the county’s dominant industry.
Veterans Services
VETERANS SERVICES
Office: Saline County Veterans Assistance – confirm current contact via salinecounty.illinois.gov.
Libraries
LIBRARIES
Harrisburg Public Library (Harrisburg) – confirm current address/phone via the county library system.
Parks & Recreation
PARKS & RECREATION
Key Assets: Saline County State Fish & Wildlife Area (including Glen O. Jones Lake), the Saline County Area Historical Museum, and Cave Hill near Sulphur Spring are the county’s premier heritage and recreational attractions.
Notes: The genuine, well-documented local legend of the Tuttle Bottoms Monster – including a delightfully deadpan 1963 newspaper account involving the county sheriff – is among the standout local cultural facts covered in this project.
GIS & Maps
GIS & MAPS
Appraisal/Parcel Search: Saline County Assessor’s Office – confirm current contact via salinecounty.illinois.gov.
Animal Services
ANIMAL SERVICES
Confirm current dedicated shelter contact via salinecounty.illinois.gov; Saline County Sheriff’s Office for animal control arrangements.
Environmental & Waste
ENVIRONMENTAL / WASTE MANAGEMENT
Office: Saline County Environmental Health – confirm current contact via salinecounty.illinois.gov.
NOTES: Saline County is the seventy-third county completed in Illinois’s Round 3 v2 redo, under the A+ sourced standard established for this project. The genuine, well-documented local legend of the Tuttle Bottoms Monster is among the standout local cultural facts covered 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 Saline County
Saline County is southern Illinois’s salt heritage and Shawnee Hills county – a community whose salt springs were documented by French explorers and commercially exploited for decades, with Abraham Lincoln among those who worked the salines.
Harrisburg (the county seat, population ~9,000) serves as the commercial hub for Saline County and the surrounding southern Illinois region. The area’s coal mining heritage – deep shaft mines that operated through much of the 20th century – shaped the working-class culture of the county’s communities.
The American Salines – salt springs along the Saline River documented by French explorers in the 18th century – were among Illinois’s most valuable early industrial resources. Young Abraham Lincoln worked at the salt works in the early 19th century, one of the lesser-known chapters of his pre-presidential biography.
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Saline County Assessor at 10 E. Poplar Street, Suite 4, Harrisburg, IL 62946, phone 618-252-0691. IL residential assessed at 33.33% of market value. Appeal to Board of Review.
Courts & Legal
Saline County Circuit Court at 10 E. Poplar Street, Harrisburg, IL 62946, phone 618-252-8661, 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)
10 E. Poplar St., Harrisburg, IL 62946
(618) 252-6905
CIRCUIT CLERK (Court Records, Marriage Licenses)
10 E. Poplar St., Harrisburg, IL 62946
(618) 253-8197
ELECTIONS (County Clerk)
10 E. Poplar St., Harrisburg, IL 62946
(618) 252-6905
Genealogy
County-level record sources
Saline County Circuit Clerk (probate/estate case files – see Probate section above).
Garden of the Gods (Shawnee National Forest) is a significant natural and historical landmark near the county.
Local societies
No dedicated Saline 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
Saline County Circuit Clerk (First Judicial Circuit) 10 East Poplar Street, Harrisburg, IL 62946 (618) 253-5096
Saline County was founded in 1847, named for the Saline River, and sits in the region locally known as “Little Egypt.” Its seat, Harrisburg, calls itself the “Gateway to the Shawnee National Forest.”
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 Saline 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 Saline 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
10 E. Poplar St., Harrisburg, IL 62946
(618) 252-8361
Elections & Voting
Voter registration, polling locations, and elections information are handled by the following office(s):
COUNTY CLERK (Records, Vital Records, Elections)
10 E. Poplar St., Harrisburg, IL 62946
(618) 252-6905
ELECTIONS (County Clerk)
10 E. Poplar St., Harrisburg, IL 62946
(618) 252-6905
Health & Human Services
Offices & Contacts
Health services, social services, and assistance programs are handled by the following office(s):
Saline County Health Dept
(618) 252-8322
IL DCFS — Harrisburg
(618) 252-6411
IL Medicaid
(800) 843-6154
Saline County Area Hospital
salinehospital.org (Harrisburg)
Public Health Information
PUBLIC HEALTH
Office: Saline County Health Department – confirm current contact via salinecounty.illinois.gov.
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Last verified June 2026
County Facts
County Seat: Harrisburg
Population: 24,000
Area: 381 sq mi
Established: 1847
Tier: 3
Public Records
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