Biohazard Cleanup Near Arrowsmith Historic District Arrowsmith, IL

Arrowsmith is a village in eastern McLean County, Illinois, and is part of the Bloomington–Normal metropolitan area.

Arrowsmith was laid out on December 7, 1871, by Bloomington land dealers Charles W. Holder and Owen T. Reeves, who kept their identities as the town's founders secret for two years until the plat was officially recorded.

The village takes its name from Ezekiel Arrowsmith, an early settler who was the first supervisor of Arrowsmith Township — the founders first wanted to call the town Weldon, but that name had just been taken by a new town in De Witt County.

Arrowsmith's original design was centered on a wide railroad ground, with eight blocks north of the tracks and eight blocks south; the township had voted $30,000 in bonds to support the railroad on condition that a station be built there.

Arrowsmith was incorporated as a village in April 1890, but growth was slow — it had only 317 people by 1900.

In 1921, Dr. L. M. Johnson opened a small hospital in Arrowsmith with a modern operating room and X-ray equipment — a remarkable institution for a town of about 350 people — and it served eastern McLean County into the 1940s.

Arrowsmith's population was 276 at the 2020 census; at the 2000 census it had 298 people living in 108 households.

Arrowsmith is one of the smallest incorporated villages in McLean County, covering just 0.2 square miles surrounded by Corn Belt farmland.