The Dunphy Building, which was once an Underground Railroad station, now houses The Second Reading Book Shop.

The Underground Railroad Station Located at 16 East Broadway in Alton, Illinois

by

John J. Dunphy

In this 2017 column for The Telegraph of Alton, Illinois, I wrote that the Dunphy Building became an Underground Railroad station in 1840. While Elijah Dimmock and his family indeed moved to Alton in 1840, as I noted in my book Abolitionism and the Civil War in Southwestern Illinois, he didn’t purchase the Dunphy Building until 1847. A Yankee abolitionist, Dimmock soon made it an Underground Railroad station.

Dunphy made a mistake. That alone surely makes this column collectible.