Grundy County is a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 50,063. Its

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

Morris Morris may refer to: Places Australia *St Morris, South Australia, place in South Australia Canada * Morris Township, Ontario, now part of the municipality of Morris-Turnberry * Rural Municipality of Morris, Manitoba ** Morris, Manitob ...

. Grundy County is part of the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Naperville Naperville ( ) is a city in DuPage County, Illinois, DuPage and Will County, Illinois, Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is in the Chicago metro area, west of the city. Naperville was founded in 1831 by Joseph Naper. The city was ...

- Elgin, IL- IN- WI

Metropolitan Statistical Area In the United States, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are neither legally incorporated as a city or tow ...

. In 2010, the center of population of Illinois was in Grundy County, just northeast of the village of Mazon. Illinois's state fossil, the unique and bizarre

Tully Monster ''Tullimonstrum'', colloquially known as the Tully monster or sometimes Tully's monster, is an extinct genus of soft-bodied bilaterian animal that lived in shallow tropical coastal waters of muddy estuaries during the Pennsylvanian geologica ...

, was first found in Mazon Creek. Grundy County is home to Dresden Generating Station—the first privately financed nuclear power plant built in the United States—and the Morris Operation—the only de facto high-level

radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons r ...

storage site in the United States.

History

Grundy County was established on February 17, 1841. It was formed out of LaSalle County and named after U.S. Attorney General Felix Grundy (1777–1840). The county was well known for its coal mines and attracted miners from Pennsylvania and other regions to work its deposits. The

1883 Diamond Mine Disaster On February 16, 1883, the Diamond No. 2 Coal Mine, near Braidwood, Illinois, flooded with snow melt and rain water. Seventy-four men and boys were trapped in the mine and perished. The 1883 Diamond Mine Disaster was one of the worst mining disaste ...

occurred in Grundy County. The disaster took the lives of 69 men and boys who were trapped underground when water broke through into the mine after days of heavy rain and the pumps could not keep up with the rising water. 22 bodies were eventually recovered, the remaining 44 were left in the mine and the mine was sealed. Today a marker stands near where it was believed the majority of victims were entombed. File:Grundy County Illinois 1841.png, Grundy County at the time of its creation in 1841

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (2.9%) is water.

Climate and weather

In recent years, average temperatures in the county seat of Morris have ranged from a low of in January to a high of in July, although a record low of was recorded in January 1985 and a record high of was recorded in June 1988. Average monthly precipitation ranged from in February to in June.

Major highways

* * * * US 66 (historic)

US 66 * * * *

Adjacent counties

* Kendall (north) * Will (east) * Kankakee (southeast) * Livingston (south) * LaSalle (west)

Demographics

As of the

2010 United States Census The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servi ...

, there were 50,063 people, 18,546 households, and 13,431 families residing in the county. The population density was . There were 19,996 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 93.7% white, 1.2% black or African American, 0.7% Asian, 0.2% American Indian, 2.7% from other races, and 1.5% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 8.2% of the population. In terms of ancestry, 28.3% were German, 23.0% were

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

, 12.7% were

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

, 9.4% were Polish, 8.6% were English, 7.1% were

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

, and 3.0% were American. Of the 18,546 households, 38.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.8% were married couples living together, 9.7% had a female householder with no husband present, 27.6% were non-families, and 22.5% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.69 and the average family size was 3.16. The median age was 36.1 years. The median income for a household in the county was $64,297 and the median income for a family was $75,000. Males had a median income of $58,491 versus $36,592 for females. The per capita income for the county was $27,895. About 5.2% of families and 6.9% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for t ...

, including 8.0% of those under age 18 and 6.5% of those age 65 or over.

Communities

City

Villages

* Braceville * Carbon Hill * Channahon (part) * Coal City (part) *

Diamond Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...

(part) * Dwight (part) * East Brooklyn * Gardner * Godley (part) * Kinsman * Mazon * Minooka (mostly) *

Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...

(part) * South Wilmington *

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in nor ...

Townships

Grundy County is divided into seventeen

townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

: * Aux Sable * Braceville * Erienna * Felix *

Garfield ''Garfield'' is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis. Originally published locally as ''Jon'' in 1976, then in nationwide syndication from 1978 as ''Garfield'', it chronicles the life of the title character Garfield the cat, his hum ...

* Goodfarm * Goose Lake * Greenfield * Highland *

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...

* Mazon *

* Nettle Creek * Norman * Saratoga *

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

* Wauponsee

Unincorporated communities

* Mazonia * Paytonville * Nettle Creek * Wauponsee

Politics

References

External links

Grundy County website

Grundy County Jobs
{{Coord, 41.29, -88.43, display=title, type:adm2nd_region:US-IL_source:UScensus1990 Illinois counties 1841 establishments in Illinois Populated places established in 1841 Chicago metropolitan area