Tipton, in the southern part of New Design Precinct, was settled in the late 1830s by immigrants from Tipperary, Ireland, along with others from Mayo, Roscommon, and Galway Counties, as economic and political pressures drew many Irish to Monroe County. Originally called Tipperary Town because the settlers thought the area's rough hills resembled those they had left in Ireland, the community's name later changed to Tiptown and then Tipton. By 1840 the settlement was established, and its first church services were held in the home of Edward Walsh. In June 1849, Fr. P. McCabe bought forty acres from the government at one dollar an acre for a church, and after three years of labor by poor Irish pioneers, many newly arrived during the Great Potato Famine, a small wooden log church was completed; sometime in 1853 the first Mass was held there as St. Mary Parish. The first settlement centered about three miles east of the church, then expanded westward as more Irish arrived, including the Sennot, McLaughlin, Burns, Tim Dugan, Pat Lynch, David Donahue, Cooney, Dwyer, and Butler families. Growth soon made the first church too small, and during the Civil War Rev. John F. Mohr, serving the parish from Red Bud, undertook construction of a new native-stone church using money left by Fr. Gifford. Its cornerstone was laid on April 7, 1864, and the completed church, built of stone hewn and hauled by parishioners and costing about $3,000, became St. Patrick Church and remains in use. Fr. Mohr also supervised construction of an eight-room, two-and-a-half-story rectory, completed by 1868 and called the handsomest parsonage in Monroe County. The church was enlarged in 1899 with a bell tower, sanctuary, and two sacristies, then frescoed in 1902 with art windows installed. A parish school opened in 1901, closed in 1909 because road conditions sometimes prevented attendance, reopened in a new building in 1913, and closed again ten years later for lack of attendance. A Tipton post office operated from July 24, 1871, to April 3, 1888, under postmaster Christian von Ende, and a school later opened south of Burksville Station at the intersection of Sportsman and LL Roads; when Tipton School District 13 closed in 1949, Vincent Walsh was the teacher. St. Patrick's Parish continues to serve area residents. The community also lay along Illinois' First Road, the K-C Trail, a sixty-mile corridor through Randolph, Monroe, and St. Clair Counties whose use stretched back to Native American civilizations as long ago as 11,000 B.C., later serving French colonization, the founding of Illinois, and the modern Metro East St. Louis region.