Cotton Hill

Cotton Hill was a small unincorporated community in Ball Township, Sangamon County, Illinois, situated along Sugar Creek roughly eight miles south of Springfield. Known at various times as Crow's Mill or Cotton Hill Post Office, it supported a population of around 150 residents by 1900, along with a post office and a stop on the Illinois Central railroad. The community had existed for just over a century, tracing its roots to the 1820s.

In the 1930s, Cotton Hill was deliberately demolished to allow for the creation of Lake Springfield. Today the site lies beneath or along the margins of that reservoir, leaving no townsite to walk through. Visitors to the Lake Springfield area are essentially visiting the water that replaced it — the historical community itself is gone.