Discreet 24/7 Biohazard Remediation in Calumet City, IL

Calumet City — known locally as 'Cal City' — is a city in Thornton Township, Cook County, Illinois, pressed right against the Indiana state line next to Hammond.

Calumet City had a population of 36,033 at the 2020 census, and Census Bureau figures count about 14,332 households, with only about 56% of homes owner-occupied.

The city's first permanent non-Native settler was German immigrant Hans Johann Schrum, who arrived in 1863 during the Civil War.

Calumet City was incorporated on February 13, 1893, as West Hammond, after the villages of Schrumville and Sobieski Park merged; voters did not adopt the name Calumet City until 1924.

The name Calumet derives from 'Kalamick,' a Native American term tied to the Little Calumet River watershed that runs along the city's southern edge.

During Prohibition, Calumet City's State Street strip was notorious for bootleggers and illegal drinking parlors, with even Al Capone's beer operation leaving its mark on the town.

Calumet City's best-loved landmarks are its two 'Smiley Towers' — water towers painted in 1973 with giant yellow 'Have a Nice Day' smiley faces, an idea suggested by local child Kim Fornero; the River Oaks tower, nicknamed Mr. Smiley Face, even wears a bow tie.

The Smiley Towers became pop-culture icons, appearing in the Black Crowes' 1990 'Hard to Handle' video, on the back cover of the Dead Kennedys album Plastic Surgery Disasters, and in the film Natural Born Killers.

Calumet City is the setting for the childhood orphanage of Jake and Elwood in The Blues Brothers, cementing its place in movie history.

Most Calumet City students east of Torrence Avenue attend Thornton Fractional North High School — the Meteors — whose school traces back to a township high school that opened in March 1926.