When these settlers originally reached what is today Coles County, they found dense virgin forest and prairie.

The New England settlers laid out farms, constructed roads, erected government buildings and established post routes.

As a result of the second Great Awakening, many had become Baptists or switched to Protestant denominations such as Methodism or Presbyterianism before moving to what is now Coles County.

As a result of this, county residents largely supported abolitionism in the antebellum period, and also the Republican Party as of the 1850s and 1860s.

Beginning in 1849, numerous German immigrants arrived in Coles County, refugees from the rebellions the year before in various principalities.

Illinois Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas was extremely popular amongst Irish Catholic immigrants in Coles County at this time.

[4][5][6][7] Coles County has generated several well-known legends and folktales, including the Mad Gasser of Mattoon and accounts of the ghost of Mary Hawkins at Pemberton Hall.

Originally serving as the almshouse at the Coles County Poor Farm, it is considered a haunted attraction and a place of interest for paranormal investigators.

[20] In terms of ancestry, 25.6% were German, 16.4% were Irish, 11.1% were American, 10.0% were English, 3.4% were Polish, 2.9% were Italian, 2.5% were French, 2.1% were Dutch and 1.9% were Scots-Irish.