Biohazard Cleanup Near Hollywood Brookfield, IL

Brookfield is a village in Cook County, Illinois, located about 13 miles west of downtown Chicago, with a population of 19,476 at the 2020 census.

Brookfield began in 1889 as Grossdale, when Chicago lawyer and real estate investor Samuel Eberly Gross began selling building lots on farms and woodlands along the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad.

Residents voted to incorporate as the village of Grossdale in 1893, but after falling out with Gross they renamed the village Brookfield in 1905, choosing the new name in a contest to honor Salt Creek, the brook running through the area.

One of Gross's later subdivisions, platted in 1893 with its own train station, was called Hollywood - a name that survives as a Brookfield neighborhood today.

Brookfield is world-famous as the home of Brookfield Zoo, which opened in 1934 on land that Edith Rockefeller McCormick had given to the Cook County Forest Preserve District in 1919.

Brookfield Zoo draws more than 2.2 million visitors a year - over a hundred times the village's population - which has earned Brookfield the nickname "World's Most Visited Village."

Brookfield packs its roughly 19,500 residents into just 3.06 square miles, with about 7,683 households in recent Census Bureau estimates.

Brookfield's median household income is about $110,295, and about 81.8% of its homes are owner-occupied, according to Census Bureau figures for 2020-2024.

Salt Creek winds through Brookfield in a steep ravine lined with oak savannas, the village's primary natural ecosystem and the inspiration for its name.

Brookfield's population peaked at 20,429 in 1960 and has stayed near 19,000 ever since, making it one of Chicago's most stable inner-ring suburbs.