Romeoville, Illinois

The Village of Romeoville is located on the Des Plaines River (named by the French for the maple trees found along its banks) in the southeastern corner of DuPage Township (named in honor of Du Pazhe, a French hunter and trapper, who at the beginning of the nineteenth century settled at the junction of the east and west branches of the river that now bears his name) and the northwestern corner of Lockport Township (named for the community which was established in 1837 just east of the site of the first look of the Illinois and Michigan Canal) in the northeastern part of Will County.

Although Romeoville was once economically dependent in the main on nearby agriculture and dairy farms, the Village prospered from its adjacent stone quarries. The bustling industry supplied the basic materials from early road construction and buildings in such quantities that, even before Joliet, Romeoville acquired the distinction of becoming the "Stone City". In its heyday, two trainloads of limestone were shipped throughout the Midwest each morning on the Chicago Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.

In 1845, the city of Juliet's name was changed to Joliet to honor the famous explorer Louis Jolliet. Romeo acknowledged the busted romance by becoming "Romeoville". The population of Romeoville in 1929 was 200 people with approximately 46 homes. Romeoville boasted having the Lockport Grain Elevator, three taverns and Romeo Beach within its corporate limits.

In 1957 Romeoville entered a new era in its history when over six hundred acres of farm land on the west bank of the Des Plaines River on Illinois highway 66A, for the development of Hampton Park subdivision. In 1964, another section of 446 acres of the subdivision was annexed to the contiguous area of the village. These annexations, in addition to other small parcels of annexed land, greatly increased the Village's population. It rose from 197 residents in 1957 to 3,574 residents in 1960; to 6,358 residents in 1963; to over 15,000 in 1971.