Local coverage
Project conversations across Will County and the Joliet metro.
Coverage depends on independent provider availability. Each page below explains useful housing and site context for that community.
Shorewood
Shorewood grew from a Des Plaines River fishing camp called 'Troy' into a summer beach-cottage community, incorporating in 1957 and later booming with I-55/I-80 access in the 1970s.
Local planning notes →Crest Hill
Explored by Louis Joliet and Père Marquette in 1673, Crest Hill's modern footprint dates to a post-WWII subdivision boom and its 1960 incorporation as its own city.
Local planning notes →Channahon
Named for the Potawatomi 'meeting of the waters,' Channahon sits at the confluence of the Des Plaines, Kankakee, and DuPage rivers and grew around two Illinois & Michigan Canal locks.
Local planning notes →Minooka
Platted in 1852 at 'the summit' -- the highest point on the old Rock Island rail line -- Minooka's name comes from a Potawatomi word for 'good land' or 'high place.'
Local planning notes →Lockport
Platted in 1837 where the land drops roughly 40 feet, Lockport was built around the Illinois & Michigan Canal's Lock No. 1 and became a milling hub after the canal opened in 1848.
Local planning notes →Rockdale
Settled by Slovenian and Lithuanian immigrants and incorporated in 1903, Rockdale was later home to a U.S. Navy shipyard on the Des Plaines River during the 1930s.
Local planning notes →New Lenox
First settled near 'Gouger crossing' in the late 1820s, New Lenox was originally a railroad stop called Tracey before its 1946 incorporation ushered in decades of postwar growth.
Local planning notes →Plainfield
Will County's oldest community, Plainfield began at the 1828 Walkers' Grove sawmill settlement and grew into its own platted village by 1834.
Local planning notes →