Richmond is a village in McHenry County,

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 ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, 46 miles northwest of

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

. It is a

commuter village A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

within the

Chicago metropolitan area The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and h ...

. The population was 2,089 at the 2020 census.

History

Carpenter William A. McConnell was Richmond's first settler, arriving in 1837 and erecting the village's first building, a

log structure In algebraic geometry, a log structure provides an abstract context to study semistable schemes, and in particular the notion of logarithmic differential form and the related Hodge-theoretic concepts. This idea has applications in the theory o ...

. Eight other settlers arrived in 1838 and growth progressed rapidly after that point. The first school was built on McConnell's farm in 1841 and in 1844 the village was finally platted. The village was named after

Richmond, Vermont Richmond is a town in Chittenden County, Vermont, United States. As of the 2020 census the population was 4,167. The main settlement of Richmond, in the north-central part of town, is a census-designated place (CDP), with a population of 853 at t ...

, the native home of a first settler. McConnell and Dr. R.R. Stone established a cheese factory in Richmond, and a creamery, other cheese factories, a box factory, a wagon works and a pickle factory followed. Most of Richmond's original buildings were built from the mid-1840s through the 1860s and consisted of

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...

rural farmhouse and Richmond's commercial district. Houses within the village were built mostly in the Greek Revival style as well with later prominent homes cast in the

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

styles. The village of Richmond was officially incorporated in 1872.Gallagher, Christina J.
Memorial Hall
( PDF), National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, April 26, 1993, ''

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency The Illinois Historic Preservation Division, formerly Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Illinois, and is a division of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. It is tasked with the duty of m ...

'', accessed May 4, 2008. On Christmas Eve 1902 a devastating fire swept through most of Richmond's commercial district destroying 20 buildings.Drabant, Gail A.
Lucien Boneparte Covell House
, ( PDF), National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, August 8, 1988, ''

'', accessed May 3, 2008. The fire was a setback for Richmond's economic growth as most of the buildings were either uninsured or

underinsured Underinsured refers to various degrees of being insured for some real risks and uninsured for others, at the same time. Health care Johns Hopkins University professor Vicente Navarro stated in 2003, "the problem does not end here, with the uninsu ...

. Many business owners did not bother to rebuild at all following the fire. Another building spurt did occur in Richmond between 1903 and 1905. Richmond was the site for the Chicago Super and Sprint Weekend event, June 11–12, 2017, part of the Reebok

Spartan Race Spartan Race is a series of obstacle races of varying distance and difficulty ranging from 3 miles to marathon distances. These races are held in the United States and have been franchised to 30 countries, including Canada, South Korea, Austra ...

Geography

Richmond is located at (42.471868, -88.307431). According to the 2010 census, Richmond has a total area of , all land.

Major streets

* Main Street * Kenosha Street * Mill Street * Broadway Street * George Street

Demographics

As of the

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

of 2010, there were 1,901 people, 415 households, and 285 families residing in the village. The population density was . There were 441 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the village was 97.89%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

, 0.27%

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

, 0.18% Native American, 0.64%

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, 0.92% from

other races Other often refers to: * Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy Other or The Other may also refer to: Film and television * ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack * ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...

, and 0.09% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties forme ...

Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...

of any race were 4.03% of the population. There were 415 households, out of which 35.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.4% were married couples living together, 8.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.3% were non-families. 25.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.63 and the average family size was 3.19. In the village, the population was spread out, with 27.3% under the age of 18, 7.3% from 18 to 24, 29.9% from 25 to 44, 22.6% from 45 to 64, and 12.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 99.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.3 males. The median income for a household in the village was $52,361, and the median income for a family was $60,417. Males had a median income of $41,136 versus $27,344 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or total income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita i ...

for the village was $22,332. About 2.6% of families and 6.5% 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 4.4% of those under age 18 and 10.2% of those age 65 or over.

References

External links

Richmond municipal government's (Village of Richmond) website
{{authority control Villages in McHenry County, Illinois Villages in Illinois Populated places established in 1844