Marionville claims to possess the largest, oldest colony of white squirrels in the world, around 300 to 600 here since at least 1854. The local Lions Club actively encourages the squirrels, building little wooden dwellings and planting nut-bearing trees.
Common gray squirrels found in Marionville are trapped and kicked out.
Marionville even contains the White Squirrel Bed and Breakfast on Mill Street, where visiting humans can stay.
Other towns jostle for the title of White Squirrel Capital, but to the east, Olney, Illinois has been particular loud about promoting itself as Home of the White Squirrels. Marionville believes their own squirrels arrived in town "just after the Civil War" and that they escaped from a traveling circus. "The squirrels in Olney were kidnapped from Marionville," they explain.
