Peoria

History

Peoria was the earliest permanent European settlement in what is now Illinois; French explorers first established a presence along the Illinois River in the late 17th century, with the community later evolving into the modern city. 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; linguistic scholars have proposed an origin in Proto-Algonquian meaning “to dream with the help of a manitou,” but the etymology remains 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

According to the 2010 census, Peoria has a total area of 50.23 square miles (130.10 km2), of which 48.01 square miles (124.35 km2) (or 95.58%) is land and 2.22 square miles (5.75 km2) (or 4.42%) is water.

Climate

Peoria has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa), with cold, snowy winters, and hot, humid summers. Monthly daily mean temperatures range from 22.5 °F (−5.3 °C) to 75.2 °F (24.0 °C). Snowfall is common in the winter, averaging 26.3 inches (67 cm), but this figure varies considerably from year to year. Precipitation, averaging 36 inches (914 mm), peaks in the spring and summer, and is the lowest in winter. Extremes have ranged from −27 °F (−33 °C) in January 1884 to 113 °F (45 °C) 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 2,543 inhabitants per square mile (982/km2). 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 packing 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 (1837), Almiron S. Cole (1844), 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 (also known as 'Sin Tax') 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.

Retail

Northwoods Mall is the largest shopping mall in both Peoria and the Tri-County area. Other retail centers include The Shoppes at Grand Prairie, Junction City Shopping Center, Campustown Shopping Center, Sheridan Village, Metro Centre, Willow Knolls Court, and Westlake Shopping Center.

Businesses

Renaissance Park was originally designated as a research park, originally established in May 2003 as the Peoria Medical and Technology District. It consisted of nine residential neighborhoods, Bradley University, the medical district, and the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research. The Peoria NEXT Innovation Center opened in August 2007 and provides both dry and wet labs, as well as conference and office space for emerging start-up companies. Over $2 billion in research is conducted in Peoria annually. While the Renaissance Park research park project never came to full fruition, many of the original ideas from the original Renaissance Park concept still continue on a smaller level via The Renaissance Park Community Association.

Businesses in Peoria with significant presence include:

Caterpillar (until 2017 when its headquarters (approximately 300 positions) moved to Deerfield, Illinois, and then to Irving, Texas in 2022): Heavy equipment and engine manufacturer. Caterpillar still maintains a large working force in the area in management, marketing, IT, engineering and labor union manufacturing, as well as other positions.

CEFCU: Credit union; started by Caterpillar employees; now serves residents of 14 counties in Central Illinois and 3 in California

Komatsu America Corporation: World's second-largest mining equipment manufacturer has a large manufacturing facility in Peoria

Maui Jim: Sunglasses manufacturer headquarters, a subsidiary (as of 2022) of the French company Kering Eyewear.

National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research: Largest USDA research facility; one of the facilities where mass production of penicillin was improved

OSF Healthcare, which operates OSF Saint Francis Medical Center

RLI Corp. (World Headquarters): Specialty insurance company.

Top employers

According to the city's 2023 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, the top employers in the city are:

Arts and culture

Museums

Museums in Peoria include the Pettengill-Morron House, the John C Flanagan House of the Peoria Historical Society, and the Wheels o' Time Museum. The Museum Block, opened on October 12, 2012, houses the Peoria Riverfront Museum and the Caterpillar World Visitors Center.

The Museum Block, also known as Museum Square, is a $100+ million project that contains the Peoria Riverfront Museum and The Caterpillar Experience, a museum and visitor center showcasing Caterpillar past, present, and future. It is located in downtown Peoria along the Illinois River at the site formerly known as the Sears Block or Washington Square. The Block broke ground on September 7, 2010 and opened in October 2012. The Peoria PlayHouse Children's Museum opened in June 2015 in the Glen Oak Pavilion.

Festivals

The Heart of Illinois Fair was established in 1949 and has run annually since. The Steamboat Classic, held every summer, is the world's largest four-mile (6 km) running race and draws international runners. The Peoria Santa Claus Parade, which started in 1888, is the oldest running holiday parade in the United States.

The Peoria Art Guild, in partnership with the Peoria Park District, hosts the Annual Art Fair, which is continually rated as one of the 100 top art fairs in the nation. The Peoria Park District also partners with a variety of organizations to annually host Fiesta en el Rio, Peoria Irish Fest, River City Soul Fest and Gospel Fest, India Fest, Peoria Irish Fest, and Oktoberfest.

Performing arts

The Peoria Symphony Orchestra is the 14th oldest in the nation. Peoria is also home to the Peoria Municipal Band, the Peoria Area Civic Chorale, the Youth Music Illinois (formerly known as Central Illinois Youth Symphony), Central Illinois Ballet, and the Peoria Ballet. Several community and professional theaters have their home in and around Peoria, including the Peoria Players, which is the fourth-oldest community theater in the nation and the oldest in Illinois. Corn Stock Theatre is another community theater company in Peoria, and is the only outdoor theater company in Central Illinois.

Peoria has hosted the Heart of Illinois Fair every year since 1949. The fair features livestock competitions, rides, concessions, motor contests, and concerts.

Civic Center

The Peoria Civic Center includes an arena, convention center, and theater, and opened June 6, 1982, was designed by the famed late architect Philip Johnson. It completed a $55 million renovation and expansion by 2007.

The Hotel Pere Marquette finished renovations in 2013 with a skyway linking to the Peoria Civic Center. A new 10-story Courtyard has been built adjacent to this hotel, completing a hotel campus for larger conventions. The Civic Center hosts a variety of events in its arena, convention center, and theatre, including Bradley Braves men's basketball, Peoria Rivermen (SPHL), the IHSA State Chess Championship. Which claims to be the largest chess team tournament in the United States: Beginning in 2018, the teams were narrowed to 128 by the use of sectional elimination competitions, and as of 2018 the tournament has about 1500 players, including up to 8 players and 4 alternates per team.

Library

Library services in Peoria originated in 1855 with two rival libraries, the Peoria Mercantile Library and the Peoria Library, which consolidated in 1856 as the Peoria City Library, and contained over 1,500 volumes. The Peoria Public Library has five locations, including the Main Library in downtown Peoria, the Lincoln Branch, a Carnegie library opened in 1911, the Lakeview Branch, McClure Branch, and North Branch.

Sports

Parks and recreation

Grandview Drive, which Theodore Roosevelt purportedly called the "world's most beautiful drive" during a 1910 visit, runs through both Peoria and Peoria Heights. In addition to Grandview Drive, the Peoria Park District contains 9,000 acres (36 km2) of parks and trails, making it the largest park system in Illinois. The Illinois River Bluff Trail connects four Peoria Park District parks: Camp Wokanda, Robinson Park, Green Valley Camp, and Detweiller Park; the Rock Island Greenway (13 miles) connects the State of Illinois Rock Island trail traveling north to Toulon, IL and also connects southeast to East Peoria, IL and to the Morton Community Bikeway. Other parks include the Forest Park Nature Center, which features seven miles of hiking trails through prairie openings and forested woodlands, Glen Oak Park, and Bradley Park, which features disc golf as well as a dog park. Peoria has five public golf courses, as well as several private and semi-private golf courses. The Peoria Park District, the first and still largest park district in Illinois, was the 2001 Winner of the National Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Parks and Recreation for Class II Parks.

Various cultural institutions are located in Glen Oak Park. The Peoria Zoo, formerly Glen Oak Zoo, was expanded and refurbished in recent years. Finished in 2009, the new zoo improvements more than triple the size of the zoo and feature a major African safari exhibit. Luthy Garden, established in 1951, is 5 acres (2.0 ha) and offers over a dozen theme gardens and a Conservatory.

Government

Peoria is a home rule municipality with a mayor and ten city council members, operating under a council-manager form of government. The city is divided into five districts, each of which elects one member using first-past-the-post (FPTP). Additionally, five council members are elected at-large using the equal-and-even variant of cumulative voting, also known as satisfaction approval voting, with the number of candidates a voter may vote for restricted to five, the number of seats up for election.

Township of the City of Peoria

The Township of the City of Peoria (also City of Peoria Township) is a separate government from the City of Peoria, and performs the functions of civil township government in most of the city. In 1907, the township was created by the Peoria County Board to match the boundaries of the City of Peoria, which until then had overlapped portions of Peoria Township (now West Peoria Township) and Richwoods Township. The border of the township grew with the Peoria city limits until 1990, when it was frozen at its current boundaries, containing about 53 sq mi (140 km2); the City of Peoria itself has continued expanding outside the City of Peoria Township borders into Kickapoo, Medina, and Radnor townships. In the years before the freeze, the Township of the City of Peoria had grown to take up most of the former area of Richwoods and what is now West Peoria Township.

This township has the following neighborhoods:

Averyville*

Center Bluff

Central Peoria

Downtown

East Bluff

El Vista*

Glen Oak-Flanagan Historic District

Goose Lake

Grandview Drive

Heart of Peoria

Moss-Bradley

North Valley

Northwest Peoria

Randolph-Roanoke Historic District

University East

The Uplands

West Bluff

* - unincorporated towns that were assimilated by the City of Peoria.

Education

Peoria is divided between several public K-12 school districts:

Peoria Public Schools District 150 is the largest and serves the majority of the city. District 150 schools include dozens of primary and middle schools, as well as three public high schools: Richwoods High School, which hosts the competitive International Baccalaureate Program of study; Manual High School; and Peoria High School (Central), the oldest high school in Illinois. At the end of the 2009–2010 school year, a fourth high school, Woodruff High School, closed. Reservoir Gifted School, one of the middle schools in the district, was ranked #5 of all middle schools in Illinois in 2025.

Dunlap Community Unit School District 323 serves the far north and northwest parts of Peoria, that were mostly outside the city before the 1990s. Dunlap schools have Dunlap High School, 2 Middle Schools and 5 Elementary schools.

Pleasant Valley School District 62 includes a part of western Peoria.

Limestone Community High School District 310 serves a small portion of the western edge of the City of Peoria (western edges of Wardcliffe and Lexington Hills areas), but mainly serves the suburbs of Bartonville, Bellevue and surrounding towns.

Peoria Heights Community Unit School District 325 serves the suburb of Peoria Heights; however, parts of the City of Peoria immediately outside the Heights are in this school district.

Illinois Valley Central Unit School District 321 includes parts of northeast Peoria

Peoria was also served by Quest Charter Academy, a STEM focused school serving grades 5–12, until the charter school closed its doors at the conclusion of the 2024 school year.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria runs six schools in the city: five grade schools and Peoria Notre Dame High School. Non-denominational Peoria Christian School operates a grade school, middle school, and high school. In addition, Concordia Lutheran School, Peoria Academy, Christ Lutheran School, Peoria Hebrew Day School, and several smaller private schools exist.

Media

As of 2024 Nielsen ratings, Peoria is the 157th largest radio market in the United States and Peoria-Bloomington is the 122nd largest television market in the United States.

The area has 14 commercial radio stations with six owners among them; four non-commercial full-power radio stations, each separately owned; five commercial television stations with two operating owners among them; one non-commercial television station; and one daily newspaper (Peoria Journal Star).

NOAA Weather Radio

NOAA Weather Radio station WXJ71 transmits from East Peoria and is licensed to NOAA's National Weather Service Central Illinois Weather Forecast Office at Lincoln, broadcasting on a frequency of 162.475 mHz (channel 4 on most newer weather radios, and most SAME weather radios). The station activates the SAME tone alarm feature and a 1050 Hz tone activating older radios (except for AMBER Alerts, using the SAME feature only) for hazardous weather and non-weather warnings and emergencies, along with selected weather watches, for the Illinois counties of Fulton, Knox, Marshall, Mason, McLean, Peoria, Stark, Tazewell, and Woodford. Weather permitting, a tone alarm test of both the SAME and 1050 Hz tone features are conducted every Wednesday between 11 AM and noon.

Infrastructure

Health and medicine

The health-care industry accounts for at least 25% of Peoria's economy. The city has three major hospitals: OSF Saint Francis Medical Center (the area's Level I adult trauma center), Carle Health Peoria – Methodist (a level II adult trauma center), and Carle Health Peoria – Proctor. In addition, the Children's Hospital of Illinois (a part of OSF Saint Francis, and the area's Level I pediatric trauma center), the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, and the Midwest Affiliate of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital are located in the city. The hospitals are all located in a medical district around the junction of Interstate 74 and Knoxville Avenue, adjacent to downtown in the southeast of the city, except for Carle Health Peoria – Proctor, which is in the geographic center of the city. The surrounding towns are also supported by Carle Health Peoria - Pekin Hospital in Pekin, Illinois, Advocate Eureka Hospital in Eureka, Illinois, and the Hopedale Medical Complex Hospital and Nursing Home in Hopedale, Illinois. The Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation was created from the "Peoria Plan for Human Rehabilitation," a model for medical and occupational rehabilitation launched in 1943 to integrate returning World War II veterans back into the workplace.

Transportation

The Peoria area is served by three Interstate highways: Interstate 74, which runs from northwest to southeast through the downtown area, Interstate 474, a southern bypass of I-74 through portions of Peoria and the suburbs of Bartonville and Creve Coeur, and Interstate 155, which runs south from I-74 in Morton to Interstate 55 in Lincoln which connects to Springfield and St. Louis. I-74 crosses over the Illinois River via the Murray Baker Bridge, while I-474 crosses via the Shade-Lohmann Bridge. The nearest metropolitan centers accessible on I-74 are the Quad Cities to the west, and Bloomington-Normal to the east.

From 2004 to 2006, Interstate 74 between Interstate 474 on the west and Illinois Route 8 on the east was reconstructed as part of the Upgrade 74 project. In addition, U.S. Route 150 serves as the main arterial for the northern portion of the Peoria area, becoming War Memorial Drive before heading west towards Kickapoo. It enters from the McClugage Bridge; east of the bridge, then runs southeast to Morton. U.S. Route 24 runs concurrently with Interstate 474 in the southwest portion of the city.

The following state routes run through Peoria:

Illinois Route 6 runs along the northwestern portion of the city as an extension of I-474. It is a four-lane freeway that runs from the I-74/474 intersection northeast to Illinois Route 29 south of Chillicothe. It is marked as a north–south road.

Illinois Route 8 roughly parallels I-74 to the south. It enters Peoria from Elmwood and runs southeast through the city, passing just southwest of the downtown area. Illinois 8 crosses into East Peoria via the Cedar Street Bridge with 116. Illinois 8 is marked as an east–west road.

Illinois Route 29 runs through Peoria along the Illinois River from Chillicothe through downtown Peoria. It then joins Interstate 74 across the Murray Baker Bridge. Illinois 29 is marked as a north–south road, and is called Galena Road north of U.S. 150.

Illinois Route 40 (formerly 88) enters Peoria from the north as Knoxville Avenue. It runs south through the center of the city and exits southeast over the Bob Michel Bridge. Illinois 40 is marked as a north–south road.

Notable people

Gerald Thomas Bergan, clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church

Caroline Brown Bourland, Professor & Scholar

Lydia Moss Bradley, founded Bradley University

Lester Brockelhurst, serial killer

Nikki Budzinski, U.S. representative for Illinois

William Lane Craig, Christian apologist

Thomas D. Duane, Ophthalmologist who first described valsalva retinopathy in 1972.

Philip José Farmer, Science Fiction Author

Dan Fogelberg, Singer & Songwriter

Betty Friedan, feminist writer and activist

Jon Ginoli, musician, Pansy Division

A. J. Guyton, Professional basketball player, graduated from Peoria High School

Alice Rogers Hager, president, Women's National Press Club

John Grier Hibben, Philosopher & Educator

Bruce Johnston, member of the Beach Boys

Jim Jordan (Fibber McGee), Fibber McGee and Molly radio show

Marian Jordan (Molly), Fibber McGee and Molly radio show

Tim Kelley Multi Grammy Award Winning Record Producer, Key To The City of Peoria recipient

Peoria in popular culture

The theme of Peoria as the archetypal example of middle American culture runs throughout American culture, appearing in movies and books, on television and radio, and in countless advertisements as either a filler place name or the representative of mainstream taste, hence the phrase "Will it play in Peoria?"

The 1997 comedy film Peoria Babylon takes place in the city, though it was filmed in Chicago, Illinois.

The 2018 Netflix sitcom Prince of Peoria is set in Peoria, though nothing but establishing shots were filmed there.

Sister cities

Peoria's sister cities include:

Aitou, Lebanon

Benxi, China

Clonmel, Ireland

Friedrichshafen, Germany