Joliet, IL news and local guide

After the Black Hawk War, Charles Reed built a cabin on the west bank of the Des Plaines in 1833. Across the river in 1834, James B. Campbell, treasurer of the canal commissioners, laid out a village named Juliet, a variant of Joliet then in use. Juliet incorporated as a village just before the Panic of 1837, but residents soon asked the state to cancel the incorporation to save on taxes. In 1845 they changed the name back to Joliet, and Joliet was reincorporated as a city in 1852. Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne, who led the effort to get the charter, became the first mayor, and the Van Horne Bridge was later named for him, one of five movable bridges built so large boats could pass. The Joliet Iron and Steel Works, at one time the second-largest steel mill in the United States, operated from 1869 to 1936 as Joliet Iron Works, and all work there ended by the early 1980s. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Joliet Correctional Center, the Old Joliet Prison, was finished in 1858, built entirely of limestone from Joliet and nearby Romeoville, and was the largest state prison of its day. Sources Wikipedia: Joliet, Illinois