Sullivan, Illinois

The Moultrie County seat, at the north end of Lake Shelbyville, with a professional theater on the courthouse square.

Things to do: attractions, trails, events →

Sullivan is the county seat and the largest town in Moultrie County, a little over four thousand people at the crossroads of Routes 121 and 32. It has what most county seats this size do not: two major manufacturers, a professional theater on the square, and the north shore of one of the largest lakes in Illinois a few minutes from downtown.

Decatur, Mattoon and Charleston are each about twenty-five minutes away, and Springfield and Champaign a little over an hour. The city motto is "More Than Just a Small Town," and it earns the claim.

Where it sits

Sullivan sits in the heart of central Illinois prairie farmland where Routes 121 and 32 cross. That crossroads is why a good share of the town works in Decatur, Mattoon or Charleston and comes home to a county seat: all three are an easy drive, and none of it involves traffic.

The lake is the other half of the geography. Sullivan anchors the north end of Lake Shelbyville — the opposite end from Shelbyville, which sits at the dam — and the Corps of Engineers recreation areas along that shore, along with the Sullivan Marina, are minutes from the square.

Origins

The town was founded on March 7, 1845, first as Asa's Point, and took its name from Sullivan's Island in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, where Fort Moultrie stands — the same fort that gave the county its name. The first courthouse went up two years later, a plain two-story brick building with the jail in its basement, and the village came alive whenever court was in session.

Abraham Lincoln practiced law in that courthouse while riding the circuit from 1849 to 1852, and a monument on the square marks those years. The square is still the physical and civic center of town, ringed by locally owned shops, restaurants and professional offices. It is the kind of place where a real estate closing, a Rotary lunch and a theater matinee can all happen within a block of each other.

The Little Theatre on the Square

Sullivan's defining institution is The Little Theatre on the Square, founded by Guy S. Little, Jr. in 1957 on Harrison Street. The building opened in 1924 as a movie house called The Grand, and since the theater's debut it has brought Broadway-caliber productions — and names like Mickey Rooney and Vivian Vance — to a courthouse square in the middle of the Prairie State. It runs today as a nonprofit professional summer-stock theater and draws audiences from across the region who would otherwise have no reason to turn off the highway.

Live entertainment runs deep here. The Titus Opera House, built by Civil War veteran Joseph Titus, hosted performers like the Venezuelan pianist Teresa Carreño before it burned in 1910.

Parks and the lake

Wyman Park exists because Albert Wyman, a German immigrant who ran a shoe shop in town, left money in his will for the city to buy land for a public park. It is still the community's gathering place for ballgames, festivals and summer evenings.

Lake Shelbyville puts boating, fishing and camping within minutes of downtown. Worth knowing before you shop the lake: the Corps of Engineers owns the shoreline, so there is very little true water frontage to buy anywhere on it. "On the lake" around here means close to the marina and the ramps, not a deed that reaches the water.

Economy

Agriculture is the foundation, but Sullivan punches above its weight in manufacturing. It is home to Hydro-Gear and Agri-Fab, two of the region's largest employers, both building outdoor-power and lawn-equipment components that ship worldwide. That industrial base gives the town a stability many rural county seats lack, and it shows up in the housing market as steady demand rather than boom and bust.

The Amish farms and craftsmen around Arthur, to the northwest, add another layer to the local economy and the local character.

Schools and community life

Sullivan Community Unit School District 300 serves families from elementary through high school, and the town supports its own hospital clinics, a public library and a full calendar of civic events on the square.

As everywhere around here, the district line and the town line are not the same line. Addresses with a Sullivan postmark also turn up in the Okaw Valley, Windsor and Arthur-Lovington districts. Confirm it for the specific property rather than assuming from the mailing address.

Our listings in Sullivan

4 in Sullivan itself, and the nearest after that in Arthur and Bethany.

For Sale

$380,000

728 County Road 1675E

Sullivan, IL

3 Beds · 2 Baths · 1,716 Sq Ft · 6.39 Acres

Listed by Matt Forcum

For Sale

$525,000

804 County Road 850N

Sullivan, IL

3 Beds · 2 Baths · 2,448 Sq Ft · 9.5 Acres

Listed by Debbie Cruit

Under Contract

$147,500

421 N Market Street

Sullivan, IL

3 Beds · 1 Bath · 1,161 Sq Ft · 0.37 Acres

Listed by Cathrine Craig

Under Contract

$369,900

13670 N County Road 100E

Sullivan, IL

5 Beds · 2 Baths · 2,512 Sq Ft · 1.25 Acres

Listed by Cathrine Craig

Under Contract

$339,000

15960 N County Road 000E

Arthur, IL

4 Beds · 3 Baths · 2,148 Sq Ft · 1.01 Acres

Listed by Cathrine Craig

For Sale

$119,900

214 S Hale Street

Bethany, IL

2 Beds · 1 Bath · 720 Sq Ft · 0.07 Acres

Listed by Amanda Isley

Every home we have for sale in Sullivan

Schools in Sullivan

Recorded sales in Sullivan fall almost entirely into one district. Out in the country the district line and the town line stop agreeing, so a rural address with a Sullivan postmark is worth checking.

Sullivan Dist. 30099% of recorded sales here

Ordered by how much of the town each one covers — not by any measure of quality, which is not ours to publish. Each name links to the Illinois Report Card, the state's own record, where the rating and the data behind it live. Some sales here carried no district, so this list may not be complete.

Confirm the district for a specific property before it matters. We will check it for you.

Property taxes in Sullivan

Across 190 recent sales here, the tax bill worked out to between 1.26% and 2.09% of what the buyer paid for the house, with the middle around 1.72%.

On a $149,450 house — about the middle of what sells in Sullivan — that is roughly

$1,880 – $3,120a year

It is a wide band for two reasons worth knowing. The bill attached to a sale reflects the assessment made before that sale, so a house that sold for well over its assessed value shows a low figure here — and its next bill will not be low. And exemptions move a bill a long way: owner-occupied, senior, senior freeze and veterans exemptions do not transfer automatically with the house.

If your assessment looks too high

An assessment is somebody's opinion of what your property is worth, and it can be wrong — most often when a house has not sold in years, or when its condition no longer matches what the record says. The county Board of Review decides an appeal, and what it wants to see is evidence of market value.

That is what an appraisal is. We can tell you first, at no cost, whether the numbers even look worth appealing — there is no sense paying for an appraisal to find out the assessment was about right.

Ask us to look at your assessment

Appeal windows are set by each county and open for a limited period after assessments are published. Check yours with the county — we are not the authority on the deadline.

Recorded lately around Sullivan

The newest arm's-length transfers the county has recorded nearby — the deed, not an estimate. Each opens the parcel's record.

Own a home here? We will email you when the county records a sale near it.

What has been selling

Closed sales in Sullivan over the last three, six and twelve months. These figures refresh on their own; the writing above does not.

Closed sales by rolling window: the last three, six and twelve months
Window	Sales	Median price	Per sq ft	Days on market
Last 3 months	18	$155,000	$123	19
Last 6 months	39	$160,000	$118	9
Last 12 months	81	$162,000	$117	10

The full Sullivan market report — by year, by size, and every recorded sale.

Elsewhere about Sullivan

Official sources, in their own words. We link rather than summarise.

City of Sullivan
The city’s own site: council, departments and meeting notices.
Moultrie County
County offices — the clerk, treasurer, assessor and recorder.

Your Sullivan contact

Matt Forcum

Designated Managing Broker | Owner

Matt has property on the market in Sullivan right now and can tell you what is actually moving here — not what a website thinks.

Talk to Matt

Own a house in Sullivan?

You do not have to talk to anybody to find out what it is worth. Start with the number, and decide about the rest afterwards. If you do want to talk, it reaches Matt.

What is my home worth?What it costs to ask too much

Both are built from closed sales recorded with the board and the county — not from an opinion about the market.