Monroe County, Illinois

Monroe County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Waterloo
Year Organized: 1816
Square Miles: 388

Court House:

100 S. Main Street
County Courthouse
Waterloo, IL 62298-1322

Etymology - Origin of County Name

President James Monroe, revolutionary soldier, diplomat; served two cabinet posts under President James Madison; known as co-negotiator of the Louisiana Purchase and author of the Monroe Doctrine.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Monroe County was created on January 6, 1816 (Laws, 1815/16, p. 25) and was formed from Randolph and St. Clair Counties. Present area, or parts of it, formerly included in: St. Clair County (1790–1816) and Randolph County (1795–1816).

The County was named for James Monroe, statesman and fifth president of the United States. He held numerous state and national offices in nearly 50 years of public service, and was a popular Democratic-Republican president (1817–1825). The County Seat is Waterloo . Prior County Seats was Harrisonville (1816–1825) and Waterloo (1825–Present).

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 398 square miles (1,030 km²), of which, 388 square miles (1,006 km²) of it is land and 9 square miles (24 km²) of it (2.37%) is water.

The western part of the county on the Mississippi River is part of the American Bottom floodplain, while the eastern portion of the county is relatively flat and was originally prairie. The transition zone between has high bluffs of limestone and dolomite and has distinctive Karst topography with numerous sinkholes, caves, and springs.

Neighboring Counties:

Northeast: St. Clair County
Southeast: Randolph County
South: Ste. Genevieve County, Mo.
West: Jefferson County, Mo.
Northwest: St. Louis County, Mo.

Cities and Towns:

- Columbia	city	Incorporated Area
- Fults	village	Incorporated Area
- Hecker	village	Incorporated Area
- Maeystown	village	Incorporated Area
- Valmeyer	village	Incorporated Area
- Waterloo (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."