Encyclopedia o f Chicago
Entries : Peotone, IL
Entries
P
Peotone, IL
Next

Peotone, IL

Will County, 39 miles S of the Loop. German and Dutch settlers established Peotone around the Illinois Central Railroad in the late 1850s. The Rathje family built a large windmill in the 1870s to grind wheat into flour, and the mill became a site on the Na- tional Register of Historic Places in 1982. The town remained a small farming community throughout the twentieth century, with a population of 3,385 in 2000. Since 1970, there have been repeated proposals to build a third regional airport in the area.


Peotone, IL (inc. 1869)
Year Total
(and by category) 		  Foreign Born Native with foreign parentage Males per 100 females
1900 1,003   — — —
1930 1,154   13.7% 37.4% 90
  1,142 White (99.0%)      
  12 Negro (1.0%)      
1960 1,788   — — 94
  1,777 White (99.4%)      
  9 Negro (0.5%)      
  2 Other races (0.1%)      
1990 2,947   1.1% — 98
  2,890 White (98.1%)      
  5 Asian/Pacific Islander (0.2%)      
2000 3,385   1.0% — 93
  3,315 White alone (97.9%)      
  9 Black or African American alone (0.3%)      
  2 American Indian and Alaska Native alone (0.1%)      
  16 Asian alone (0.5%)      
  10 Some other race alone (0.3%)      
  33 Two or more races (1.0%)      
  46 Hispanic or Latino* (1.4%)      

Erik Gellman
The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago © 2005 Chicago Historical Society.
The Encyclopedia of Chicago © 2004 The Newberry Library. All Rights Reserved. Portions are copyrighted by other institutions and individuals. Additional information on copyright and permissions.