By Terry Hogan

I had heard a lot about it, so I thought it might be fun to travel to and tour Shanghai City. I knew it was in Warren County, but I wasn’t quite sure where. I thought it was just up the road from Utah. But I get lost pretty easy. Then I remembered the Internet. It has maps and information on everything and every place.

I typed in Shanghai City, Illinois in quotes, using the Google search engine. I got 87 hits. It seems that Shanghai City must be a pretty busy place. First I looked on one of the many maps available to show me exactly where it is located. There it was, with a big red star marking its location. It was a pretty large red star, so I figure it must be a larger town than I expected. It was a little east and south of Alexis. It was about due north of Utah. But it appears that the Angling Road through Kelly Township might be the best route to get there from the south.

Doing a quick review of the hits confirmed this must be a booming place. I could click on hits to find homes for sale, lawyers, lenders (probably need money if you’re going to be using those Shanghai City lawyers), moving companies, contractors, handyman services, and hospitals. Why had I not spent some of my ill-spent youth in Shanghai City? This must be a booming place. I even found a hit that for breast augmentation that read, in part, "Plastic Surgeons and Breast Augmentation: Shanghai City, Illinois.
Having a breast augmentation in Shanghai City, Illinois is an important decision...." I figured this has got to be a pretty exciting place. Looking down the hits, confirmed my suspicions. Shanghai City had a hit for a dating service: "Shanghai City Illinois Dating Services. Find Shanghai City Illinois Dating Services Sites. Shanghai City Illinois".

There was a hit for International Movers, but I was unclear if it was for moving to Shanghai City from overseas or from Shanghai City. But with this kind of place, it was probably moving to. You could also click and find a roommate to reduce your living costs. If you decided not to reduce costs and you ran into debt problems in Shanghai City, there was a hit for debt consolidation: "Get Shanghai City Illinois help with debt consolidation, credit repair, and bill payments at…" But if you owned the home you could click and see about a Shanghai City home equity loan. What a place! And even better, the economy must be booming because one of the hits for Shanghai City reported "Sorry, there are currently no properties in this area."

With a booming city like this, Monmouth had better watch out. There will be a county seat fight before long.

I looked for photos of Shanghai City, but surprisingly, I couldn’t find any on Google. I figure with a place like this, the residents probably don’t want to advertise it too much. You don’t want to get the lower classes moving in. And, you probably don’t want to look like you’re flaunting your success, either.

The one thing I didn’t find was a homepage for Warren County that talked about Shanghai City. I thought about it and the solution came to me. Spelling is very important on a Google search. Get the spelling wrong, and the hits drop way off. So, I did a search on Google with "Shanghi City". I got a hit for Warren County. In amongst the information on Warren County townships was "Shanghi City" along with other neighboring communities such as Gerlaw, Ellison Village, Swan Creek, Greenbush, and of course, Utah.

So, if Galesburg gets a little slow for you some Saturday night, or if you want to take the family out on a drive and see how "the other half" lives, you may want to head for Shanghai City. Why, I bet it even has a motel there that will keep the light on for you.

Shanghai City, a great place to visit, but be cautious of free drinks.