Developer agrees to pay $144,000 for destruction of historic site in Lebanon

A home developer who destroyed part of a 1,000-year-old buried Mississippian village will pay $144,000 to help protect hundreds of other prehistoric Illinois sites, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency announced Thursday.

Home developer Thomas Bow, of T. Bow Inc. of Belleville, has agreed to pay the settlement to the state in compensation for what Bow has said was the accidental destruction of a one-acre portion of the village on what is known as the Pfeffer Farm site. This overall 10-acre site adjacent to Belleville Street lies about a mile from the village's small downtown.