Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Bushnell, IL

Bushnell is a city in northeastern McDonough County in western Illinois, founded in 1854 when the Northern Cross Railroad built its line through the area.

Bushnell was named in honor of Nehemiah Bushnell, the president of the Northern Cross Railroad, whose line later became part of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.

Bushnell had a population of 2,718 at the 2020 census and has 1,201 households, down from a peak of 3,811 people in 1980.

Bushnell's Nagel Brothers invented the first process for making rolled oats without steaming them first, and they sold the patent to what became the Quaker Oats Company.

Bushnell is home to a Vaughan & Bushnell hammer factory and to Kitchen Cooked Potato Chips, giving the small farm city an outsized manufacturing footprint.

Bushnell hosted the Cornerstone Festival from 1991 to 2012, one of the largest Christian music and arts festivals in the world, which drew about 25,000 people and more than 300 bands to a town of under 3,000 each year around the Fourth of July.

Bushnell's horse show tradition dates to 1908, when the Truman Pioneer Stud Farm hosted one of the largest horse shows in the Midwest; revived in 2004, the Bushnell Horse Show is now a top draft horse hitch show for Belgian and Percheron teams.

Bushnell students attend Bushnell-Prairie City Community Unit School District 170, formed when Bushnell and Prairie City voters approved consolidation in 1948.

Bushnell briefly had its own college - Western Normal College opened in 1881 to train teachers and operated in town for more than 20 years.

Bushnell is bisected by two active railroad lines, and Amtrak trains pass through the city without stopping; its post office displays the New Deal-era mural Pioneer Home in Bushnell by Reva Jackman.