Peoria, Illinois
Peoria is a city in Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. Located on the Illinois River, the city had a population of 113,150 as of the 2020 census, making it the eighth-most populous city in Illinois. It is the principal city of the Peoria metropolitan area in Central Illinois, consisting of Fulton, Marshall, Peoria, Stark, Tazewell, and Woodford counties and home to 402,391 people in 2020.
Established in 1691 by the French explorer Henri de Tonti, Peoria is the oldest permanent European settlement in Illinois, according to the Illinois State Archaeological Survey. Originally known as Fort Clark, it received its current name when the County of Peoria was organized in 1825. The city was named after the Peoria people, a member of the Illinois Confederation. On October 16, 1854, Abraham Lincoln made his Peoria speech against the Kansas–Nebraska Act. Prior to prohibition, Peoria was the center of the whiskey industry in the United States. More than 12 distilleries operated in Peoria by the end of the 19th century, more than any other city in the U.S.
A major port on the Illinois River, Peoria is a trading and shipping center for a large agricultural area that produces corn, soybeans, and livestock. Although the economy is well diversified, the city's traditional manufacturing industries remain important and produce earthmoving equipment, metal products, lawn-care equipment, labels, steel towers, farm equipment, building materials, steel, wire, and chemicals. Until 2018, Peoria was the global and national headquarters for heavy equipment and engine manufacturer Caterpillar Inc., one of the 30 companies composing the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and listed on the Fortune 100; the company relocated its headquarters to Deerfield, Illinois, in 2018, and then Irving, Texas, in 2022.
The city is associated with the phrase "Will it play in Peoria?", which may have originated from the vaudeville era and is often spuriously attributed to Groucho Marx. Museums in the city include the Peoria Riverfront Museum, the Pettengill–Morron House and the John C. Flanagan House, and the Peoria Playhouse Children's Museum. Wheels o' Time Museum is near Peoria.
History
Peoria is the oldest European settlement in Illinois, as explorers first ventured up the Illinois River from the Mississippi. The lands that eventually would become Peoria were first settled by Europeans in 1680, when French explorers René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Henri de Tonti constructed Fort Crevecoeur. This fort burned to the ground, and in 1813, Fort Clark, Illinois was built. When the County of Peoria was organized in 1825, Fort Clark was officially named Peoria.Peoria was named after the Peoria tribe, a member of the Illinois Confederation. The original meaning of the word is uncertain. A 21st-century proposal suggests a derivation from a Proto-Algonquian word meaning "to dream with the help of a manitou." Peoria was incorporated as a village on March 11, 1835. The city did not have a mayor, though they had a village president, Rudolphus Rouse, who served from 1835 to 1836. The first Chief of Police, John B Lishk, was appointed in 1837. The city was incorporated on April 21, 1845. This was the end of a village president and the start of the mayoral system, with the first mayor being William Hale. Peoria, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, was named after Peoria, Illinois because the two men who founded it in 1890 − Joseph B. Greenhut and Deloss S. Brown − wished to name it after their hometown.
Peoria was significant in the world of bicycle racing during the late 19th century. Held at Lake View Park, its U.S. bicycle racing stop hosted such notable names as Marshall "Major" Taylor, who became world champion. Taylor described Peoria as the "Mecca" for the sport. For much of the 20th century, Peoria hosted a red-light district of brothels and bars known as the Merry-Go-Round. Richard Pryor got his start as a performer on North Washington Street in the early 1960s.
In 2021, Rita Ali became Peoria's first female and African American mayor. Though it had been named one of the fastest-shrinking cities as recently as 2021, later in the 2020s, Peoria became notable for its trend of urban gentrification — still a rarity in many midsized Midwestern cities. TikTok user Angie Ostazewski was profiled in the New York Times after being credited with convincing upwards of 300 people to relocate to Peoria, using her profile to advertise the city's dining and arts scene and low-priced, historic housing.
Notable events
- September 19 to October 21, 1813 – Peoria War
- 1844 – Abraham Lincoln came to Peoria to get involved in the Aquilla Wren divorce case and took it to the Supreme Court of Illinois
- April 15, 1926 – Charles Lindbergh's first air mail route, Contract Air Mail route #2, began running mail from Chicago to Peoria to Springfield to St. Louis and back. There is nothing to substantiate the local legend that Lindbergh offered Peoria the chance to sponsor his trans-Atlantic flight and call his plane the "Spirit of Peoria," but he does state that he first pondered the journey after taking off from the Peoria air mail field.
- 1942 – Penicillium chrysogenum, the fungus originally used to industrially produce penicillin, was first isolated from a moldy cantaloupe found in a grocery store in Peoria.
- Local legend is that Theodore Roosevelt called Grandview Drive, a street on the bluffs overlooking the Illinois River "the world's most beautiful drive" during his visit in 1910. However, no contemporaneous accounts of this story appeared, even in local papers and histories, for over two decades after it supposedly occurred. A related legend claims that the Peoria radio station and CBS television affiliate, WMBD, chose its call sign based on this story. In fact, the WMBD letters were assigned randomly and the meaning behind it was invented after the fact in 1927.
Geography
Climate
Peoria has a humid continental climate, with cold, snowy winters, and hot, humid summers. Monthly daily mean temperatures range from to. Snowfall is common in the winter, averaging, but this figure varies considerably from year to year. Precipitation, averaging, peaks in the spring and summer, and is the lowest in winter. Extremes have ranged from in January 1884 to in July 1936.Demographics
2020 census
According to the 2021 American Community Survey, Peoria's poverty rate was 19.7 percent. Median household income was estimated to be 53,568 in 2022. Population was estimated to have decreased approximately 1.9% from 113,176 to 111,021 between 2020 and 2022. According to 24/7 Wall St, in 2018 Peoria ranked as the 5th worst city for Black Americans based on income, educational, and unemployment disparities between Black and white residents.2010 Census
As of the census of 2010, there were 115,021 people and 47,202 households residing in the city. The population density was. There were 52,621 housing units. The racial makeup of the city was 62.4% White, 26.9% Black or African American, 0.3% Native American, 4.6% Asian, and 3.6% of mixed races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.9% of the population. The city has a sizable, established Lebanese population with a long history in local business and government.There were 45,199 households, out of which 29.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.6% were married couples living together, 15.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.5% were non-families. Individuals made up 33.2% of all households, and 11.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.39 and the average family size was 3.04.
The age distribution of city population was the following: 25.7% under the age of 18, 12.0% from 18 to 24, 27.2% from 25 to 44, 20.8% from 45 to 64, and 14.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.0 males. The median income for a household in the city was $36,397. The per capita income for the city was $20,512. Some 18.8% of the population was below the poverty line.
Economy
Industry
Peoria's first major industry was started in 1830 by John Hamlin and John Sharp, who constructed the flour mill on Kickapoo Creek. In 1837, another industry was begun with E.F. Nowland's pork planting industry. Many other industries started slowly in Peoria including carriage factories, pottery makers, wholesale warehousing, casting foundries, glucose factories, ice harvesting, and furniture makers. Peoria became the first world leader for distilleries thanks to Andrew Eitle, Almiron S. Cole, and Joseph B. Greenhut. Between 1837 and 1919, Peoria held over 24 distilleries and 73 breweries. Together, they produced the highest amount of internal revenue tax on alcohol of any single revenue district in the entire United States; as much as 50% of tax revenue during the Civil War came from Peoria's district, largely due to distilleries and breweries. Peoria also was one of the major bootlegging areas during Prohibition and home to the famed mobsters, the Shelton brothers. That great success placed Peoria into a building boom of beautiful private homes, schools, parks, churches, as well as municipal buildings.In addition to the distilleries came farm machinery manufacturing by William Nurse in 1837. Also, two men called Toby and Anderson brought the steel plow circa 1843, which gained immediate success. The dominant manufacturing companies in Peoria were Kingman Plow Co., Acme Harvester Co., Selby, Starr & Co., and Avery Manufacturing Co. In 1889, Keystone Steel & Wire developed the first wire fence and has since been the nation's leading manufacturer.
Around the 1880s, businesses such as Rouse Hazard Co. in Peoria, were dealers and importers of bicycles and accessories worldwide. Charles Duryea, one of the cycle manufacturers, developed the first commercially available gasoline-powered automobile in the U.S. in 1893. At the time agricultural implement production declined, which led the earth moving and tractor equipment companies to skyrocket and make Peoria in this field the world leader. In 1925, Caterpillar Tractor Co. was formed from California-based companies, Benjamin Holt Co. and the C.L. Best Tractor Co. Robert G. LeTourneau's earth moving company began its production of new scrapers and dozers in 1935, which evolved into Komatsu-Dresser, Haulpak Division. Today, the joint venture between Komatsu and Dresser Industries has long since passed; Komatsu bought out Dresser in 1996. The entity that remains is the off-highway truck manufacturing division for Komatsu America Corporation. In September 2024, Komatsu Limited announced that it was "enhancing its Peoria operations by constructing a new office building that will provide a collaborative space for engineering, sales, manufacturing, management and other functions." The new building is planned to be completed by the end of 2025.
The world headquarters for Caterpillar Inc. was based in Peoria for over 110 years until the company announced it was moving to Deerfield, Illinois in late-2017. It still remains a significant economic driver in the city, and is Peoria's the second-biggest employer.
Health care has become a major part of Peoria's economy. Peoria was ranked as the sixth midsize healthcare hub in the country by Business Facilities in 2021.
Since 2021, OSF HealthCare has been the city's top employer, rising from fourth in 2014. Headquartered in Peoria since its founding in 1877, and it relocated its headquarters to a newly renovated building in downtown Peoria in 2022. In February 2024, OSF Healthcare opened the $250 million OSF HealthCare Cancer Institute. It also includes the Children's Hospital of Illinois.
In 2023, Carle Health finalized a deal to purchase Methodist and Proctor Hospitals from UnityPoint. It is currently the third-biggest employer in the city, behind OSF HealthCare and Caterpillar Inc.
In addition to the three major hospitals, the USDA's National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, formerly called the USDA Northern Regional Research Lab, is located in Peoria. This is one of the labs where mass production of penicillin was developed.