Local History of Will County

1152 Words3 Pages

Will County is home to a number of historical landmarks, famous figures, and a plethora of history. It was not always as built up as parts of it are now; Some two hundred years prior, Will County was a land of prairies in which it was farmed and hunted by the Potawatomi Indian tribe. The first established settlement in the boundaries of the county were made by a man named Jesse Walker in 1826. He named it Walker’s Grove, and worked with Potawatomi in the areas of agriculture, milling, and trading to newcomers of the establishment. The county was not officially established until 1836 when a legislature separated it from Cook County. Currently, Will County consists of a number of townships, which include Channahon, Crete, Custer, DuPage, Florence, Frankfort, Green Garden, Homer, Jackson, Joliet, Lockport, Manhattan, Monee, New Lenox, Peotone, Plainfield, Reed, Troy, Washington, Wesley, Wheatland, Will, Wilmington, and Wilton. Among these townships, the county encompasses a number of cities. The towns and cities that lie in the boundaries of the county include parts of Aurora, Beecher, parts of Bolingbrook, Braidwood, Channahon, parts of Coal City, Crest Hill, Crete, parts of Diamond, Elwood, Frankfort, Godley, Homer Glen, Joliet, parts of Lemont, Lockport, Manhattan, parts of Minooka, Mokena, Monee, parts of Naperville, New Lenox, parts of Orland Park, parts of Park Forest, Peotone, Plainfield, Rockdale, Romeoville, parts of Sauk Village, Shorewood, Steger, Symerton, parts of Tinley Park, parts of University Park, Wilmington, and Woodridge; not to mention a handful of unincorporated areas including Andres, Crystal Lawns, Pue, Fairmont, Frankfort Square, Goodings Grove, Goodenow, Ingalls Park, Lakewood Shores, Preston Heights, Ridge... ... middle of paper ... ...stored by the Peotone Historical Society to its original working condition. Works Cited http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1356.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Historic_Places_listings_in_Will_County,_Illinois http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joliet_Iron_and_Steel_Works http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/il/il0600/il0622/data/il0622data.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_and_Michigan_Canal http://www.cityofjoliet.com/willcounty.htm https://archive.org/stream/historyofwillcou00chic#page/224/mode/2up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_County,_Illinois http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peotone_Mill http://www.plainfield-il.org/pages/villagehistory http://www.rialtosquare.com/history.asp http://www.cityofjoliet.com/business/rialto.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rialto_Square_Theatre http://www.peotone.com/rathjemill/

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