Will County, Illinois

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

County Seat: Joliet
Year Organized: 1836
Square Miles: 837

Court House:

302 North Chicago Street
Will County Building Office
Joliet, IL 60432-4078

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Conrad Will, member of the Constitutional Convention of 1818 and member of the first nine Illinois General Assemblies.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Will County was created on January 12, 1836 (Laws, 1836, p. 262) and was formed from Cook and Iroquois Counties. Present area, or parts of it, formerly included in: Cook County (1831–1836), Iroquois County (1833–1836), Vermilion County (1826–1836), Putnam County (1825–1827), Edgar County (1823–1825), Fulton County (1823–1825), Clark County (1819–1823), Pike County (1821–1823), Crawford County (1816–1823), Edwards County (1815–1816), Madison County (1812–1815), St. Clair County (1801–1812) and Knox, Northwest Territory (1790–1801).

The County was named for Conrad Will, a pioneer politician, Territorial Recorder of Jackson County, member of the Constitutional Convention of 1818, and member of the General Assemblies of the State from the first to ninth inclusive. The County Seat is Joliet (1836-Present)-Name changed from Juliet on May 24, 1845..

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 849 square miles (2,200 km²), of which, 837 square miles (2,168 km²) of it is land and 12 square miles (32 km²) of it (1.47%) is water.

The Kankakee River, Du Page River and the Des Plaines River run through the county and join on its western border. The Illinois and Michigan Canal and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal run through Will County.

The 17,000 acre (69 km²) Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie is a U.S. Forest Service park in the county on the grounds of the former Joliet Arsenal.

Neighboring Counties:

North: DuPage County
Northeast: Cook County
East: Lake County, Ind.
Southeast: Kankakee County
Southwest: Grundy County
Northwest: Kendall County; Kane County

Cities and Towns:

- Beecher	village	Incorporated Area
- Bolingbrook	village	Incorporated Area
- Braidwood	city	Incorporated Area
- Channahon	village	Incorporated Area
- Crest Hill	city	Incorporated Area
- Crete	village	Incorporated Area
- Custer	township
- Du Page	township
- Elwood	village	Incorporated Area
- Frankfort	village	Incorporated Area
- Green Garden	township
- Homer Glen	village	Incorporated Area
- Joliet (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Lemont	village	Incorporated Area
- Lockport	city	Incorporated Area
- Manhattan	village	Incorporated Area
- Mokena	village	Incorporated Area
- Monee	village	Incorporated Area
- Naperville	city	Incorporated Area
- New Lenox	village	Incorporated Area
- Peotone	village	Incorporated Area
- Plainfield	village	Incorporated Area
- Reed	township
- Rockdale	village	Incorporated Area
- Romeoville	village	Incorporated Area
- Shorewood	village	Incorporated Area
- Symerton	village	Incorporated Area
- Wesley	township
- Wheatland	township
- Will	township
- Wilmington	village	Incorporated Area
- Wilton	township

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."