Union County was created on January 2, 1818, when Illinois was still a territory, and county commissioners established Jonesboro as the county seat on land donated by John and Juliet Grammer. During the frigid winter of January 1839, thousands of Cherokee, enroute from Georgia to Indian territory in Oklahoma, camped near here along Dutch Creek, and unable to cross the Mississippi because of floating ice, nearly 2000 of the 13,000 who began the Trail of Tears died during the journey. In the 1850s, when the Illinois Central Railroad planned to run tracks through this area, Jonesboro was asked to have a survey made at a cost of $50, and when the town failed to meet this requirement, Winstead Davie submitted a survey routing the railroad through his property east of Jonesboro; a town was platted there in 1854 along the tracks, and Davie named it Anna in honor of his wife, Anna Willard Davie. On September 15, 1858, the third Lincoln-Douglas debate was held north of the Jonesboro square, Lincoln was a guest of D.L. Phillips at 511 S. Main in Anna, and fewer than 1500 people attended, the smallest crowd of the series. During the Civil War, Anna served as one of the rendezvous points in Illinois for troops, eight Union regiments were assembled here, and General Grant spent one week in Anna mustering in troops. In 1869, the Southern Illinois Hospital for the Insane, now the Choate Mental Health Center, was built in Anna.