Vishnu Springs to be topic of Hancock County Historical Society meeting on Saturday

CARTHAGE, Ill. — The Hancock County Historical Society will present Vishnu Springs at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Carthage Community Center, 300 Main. Admission is free. the Presenter will be Marla Vizdal.

Vizdal, originally a Rockford native, came to Macomb to attend WIU and has been in Macomb since. Vizdal received her degree through the Board of Governors program and then went to work at the WIU Library. She spent most of her career in the Archives and Special Collections of the library and working with the Illinois Regional Archives Depository collection.

Vizdal helped organize the Friends of Vishnu in 2003. Vishnu Springs is a defunct community that sits close to the border of McDonough and Hancock counties, hidden in a valley.

The history of the site goes back to the mid-1850s when it was first recognized for the mineral springs and their supposed medicinal properties which were located on property owned by the Hicks family. In the late 1880s, Darius Hicks further capitalized on the springs by building a hotel for those who came to visit and selling lots to establish a community at the site. The hotel, now owned by the Western Illinois University Foundation, still exists and remains as a reminder of what once was there.