Biohazard Cleanup Near West Bement Bement, IL

Bement is a village in Piatt County in central Illinois, founded in 1854 when Massachusetts investors led by Joseph Bodman bought prairie land at $1.25 an acre ahead of the coming Great Western Railroad.

Bement was named for Samuel Bement, a secretary of the Great Western Railroad who promised to donate a bell to the first church built in the new town.

Bement is believed to be the only town in the United States with this name.

Bement was incorporated as a town in 1860, two years after its post office and the railroad arrived in 1856.

Bement's Bryant Cottage, built in 1856 by Francis E. Bryant and now preserved as the Bryant Cottage State Historic Site, is a rare surviving example of pioneer architecture.

In 1858 Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas held a two-hour conference at the Bryant Cottage in Bement to work out the terms of their famous series of debates.

Bement had 1,484 residents at the 2020 census, down from its peak population of 1,784 in 2000.

Bement's 1,484 residents lived in 633 households at the 2020 census, and about 47% of those households were married couples.

The village covers only about 0.78 square miles of Piatt County farmland and is served by Illinois Route 105 and ZIP code 61813.

Bement has its own elementary school and middle school in the village, and local preservation efforts kept the Bryant Cottage open to the public even when state budget cuts threatened to close it.