The History of Clayville Historic Site

---

Dr. Emmett Pearson and wife Mary rescued Clayville, in 1961.
They restored and developed it until the responsibility was just too much.
They then donated it to the University of Illinois, Elizabeth Weir, Director, worked hard making it a center of Pioneer Research. The responsibility became unaffordable.
It then sold to David Bourland. He with the help of Cindy Deny and group managed the most unique country restaurant in the area. It was highly successful.
The responsibility too much, Mr. Bourland abandoned the idea of keeping Clayville and so it sat for seventeen years, Mother Nature enjoying her prairie lunch.
Pleasant Plains painfully watch it disappear. No one had the money to invest. Finally, they could not stand by another minute and their good Mayor Jim Verkuilen, without a dime in his pocket, negotiated with Mr.
Bourland for an agreeable price of $200,000.00.
Clayville became the property of Pleasant Plains
Historical Society especially organized to do what they could to save Clayville once more. They paid off the mortgage in less than one year.
Sixty good volunteers worked from dawn to dusk clearing away Mother Nature, she fought back.
Lucky for Clayville it could be saved, had they waited Just an additional two months, Mother Nature would have finished her lunch.