Found a 1950s gas station map that shows a town that never existed

I was digging through a box at an estate sale last Saturday and found this old Shell map from 1954. It shows a place called 'Millbrook' in central Illinois that supposedly had a population of 350, but I checked old census records and nothing matches up. There's no record of any town with that name in that county from 1900 to 1960. Makes me wonder how many fake towns oil companies just threw on maps back then to keep competitors confused. Has anyone else stumbled across a phantom town on an old map like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

juliaa251mo ago

Yeah. Companies fake small stuff all the time. Like those fake towns on maps.

skyler_kim151mo ago

Ngl, the fake town thing is creepy enough, but has anyone checked if Millbrook lines up with any old railroad stop or short line that got abandoned? Sometimes those ghost stations were just a water tower and a platform for loading grain, and they'd get a name on maps even though nobody actually lived there. I found a 1920s map once that showed a place called "Gravel Switch" in Kentucky that was literally just a siding with a general store and three houses. The census takers probably just skipped it because it didn't have a post office or school. Pop of 350 sounds like someone copied the wrong number from a neighboring town or it was a complete fabrication to mess with Standard Oil routes. Either way, that map is a keeper.