Editing Zion, Illinois (section)

==History==
[[File:Former seal of Zion, Illinois (vect).svg|left|150px|The former seal]]
The city was founded in 1900 by [[John Alexander Dowie]], a Scots-Australian evangelical minister and faith healer who had migrated to the United States in 1888. By 1890, he had settled in [[Chicago]], where he built a large faith healing business (which included a large mail order component) and had attracted thousands of followers.

He bought land {{convert|40|mi|-1}} north of Chicago to found Zion, where he personally owned all of the land and most businesses. The city was named after [[Mount Zion]] in [[Jerusalem]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Chicago and North Western Railway Company|title=A History of the Origin of the Place Names Connected with the Chicago & North Western and Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railways|url=https://archive.org/details/historyoforigino00sten_0/page/142/mode/1up|year=1908|page=142}}</ref>

Dowie also founded the Zion Tabernacle of the [[Christian Catholic Apostolic Church]], which was the only church in town. The structure was built in the early 1900s and was burned down in 1937, following several decades of tumultuous rule by Dowie's successor, [[Wilbur Glenn Voliva]].<ref>{{Cite web | last = Simane | first = Donald E. | title = The Flat Earth | url = http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/flat/flateart.htm | access-date = September 4, 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130128084210/http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/flat/flateart.htm | archive-date = January 28, 2013 | url-status = dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | last = Weill | first = Kelly | title = When a Flat Earther Refused to Concede and All Hell Broke Loose | website = [[The Daily Beast]] | url = https://www.thedailybeast.com/when-a-flat-earther-refused-to-concede-and-all-hell-broke-loose | access-date = December 27, 2020}}</ref>