Prairie Home, LaFayette Funk’s 1864 mansion, courtesy of Kirk’s Photo Stream.
Shirley, Illinois, is located on Route 66 in southwestern McLean County. It was founded in 1854 as a farm and railroad settlement. However, it took years for an “official” town to be established.
The area’s first pioneers were brothers Isaac and Absalom Funk, who came to the region in 1824, amassed a 25,000-acre cattle ranch, and established Funk’s Grove about four miles to the South. Isaac Funk, along with his attorney and friend Abraham Lincoln, brought the Chicago & Alton Railroad through the region, sidetracking it from its planned route through Peoria.
LaFayette Funk, Isaac Funk’s son, a cattleman, co-founder and boss of the Chicago Union Stock Yards, and Illinois State Senator, built a home for his wife in Shirley in 1863. The home was state-of-the-art when it was built, with both hot and cold running water, and over the years was updated to include the first-ever electric kitchen island and a lighted tennis court. Called the Prairie Home today, the mansion has been preserved. It is open for tours and features 13 rooms of original furnishings, as well as memorabilia and antiques collected by several generations of the Funk family.
The Shirley Christian Church has been serving the area since 1839. Photo by Kathy Alexander.
Another early pioneer was John M. Foster, who came to the area from New Hampshire. He and others soon built homes near the Chicago & Alton Railroad switch. In 1866, Foster laid out a townsite. Consisting of just ten small blocks, the town included Foster’s home, a store, and the railroad station on the south side of the tracks. A warehouse and mill were situated on the North side. Later, the town built a hotel, and a Methodist and Christian Church was established. By 1895, the town had about 20 homes.
Unincorporated today, Shirley boasts a population of about 375 people. While visiting this historic community, be sure to visit the Funk Prairie Home at 10875 Prairie Home Lane. Next to the mansion is the Funk Gem and Mineral Museum, which houses a large display of rare gems, minerals, fossils, petrified wood, and lapidary art in Illinois. Lafayette Funk II, the grandson of the Senator who built the mansion, collected the unusual assortment for years before dying at age 95 in 1992. The museum bills itself as the most extensive one-man mineral collection in the world. It also features Native American artifacts collected from the Funk farmstead, interprets the Funk Brothers Seed Company, and other items collected by the Funk Family.
Route 66 continues southward for just about four miles before it comes to Funk’s Grove, home of Maple Sirup.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated October 2026.
Also See:
Illinois Route 66 Photo Gallery
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