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Entries : Hodgkins, IL
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Hodgkins, IL
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Hodgkins, IL

Cook County, 14 miles SW of the Loop. Transportation and stone quarries have shaped the development of Hodgkins. In the late 1880s the Santa Fe Railroad came through this area and the Kimball and Cobb Stone Company opened a large limestone quarry. The town was named for Jefferson Hodgkins, president of the company, and was incorporated as a village in 1896.

Italian Americans and others arrived in the 1890s to help build the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

The quarry continued to dominate the local scene until the 1950s, although the economy diversified somewhat with the addition of numerous motor freight terminals.

Hodgkins has a growing Mexican population, almost 30 percent of the population of 2,134 in the 2000 census. Somewhat fewer than half of the residents live in three mobile-home parks. Proximity to Interstates 55 and 294 makes Hodgkins a natural distribution point, a fact recognized in 1995 when United Parcel Service opened a huge sorting facility here. In 1997 the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway established an intermodal freight facility at Hodgkins.


Hodgkins, IL (inc. 1896)
Year Total
(and by category) 		  Foreign Born Native with foreign parentage Males per 100 females
1900 195   — — —
1930 302   — — —
1960 1,126   — — 103
  1,126 White (100.0%)      
1990 1,963   22.9% — 121
  1,473 White (75.0%)      
  2 Black (0.1%)      
  8 American Indian (0.4%)      
  52 Asian/Pacific Islander (2.6%)      
  409 Other race (20.8%)      
  589 Hispanic Origin* (30.0%)      
2000 2,134   33.3% — 123
  1,746 White alone (81.8%)      
  3 Black or African American alone (0.1%)      
  10 American Indian and Alaska Native alone (0.5%)      
  1 Asian alone (0.0%)      
  347 Some other race alone (16.3%)      
  27 Two or more races (1.3%)      
  933 Hispanic or Latino* (43.7%)      

Ronald S. Vasile

Bibliography
Eicholz, Linda Buralli, and Janet Klotz Coleman. Village of Hodgkins: One Hundred Years of Progress, 1896–1996. 1996.
Zorn, Eric. “Small-Town USA Knows Its Own Mind.” Chicago Tribune, June 23, 1990.

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