Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near West Cornell Cornell, IL

Cornell is a village in Amity Township, Livingston County, in north-central Illinois, and it is part of the region known as Streatorland.

Modern Cornell is the blend of two rival towns platted two days apart in June 1871, both hoping to win a station on the new Fairbury, Pontiac and Northwestern Railroad, which later became part of the Wabash Railroad.

The town of Cornell was laid out on June 15, 1871 by Walter P. Cornell, a Rhode Island native who had come to Illinois in 1837, served three years as Livingston County treasurer, and was a director of the railroad.

The adjoining town of Amity was laid out two days later by farmer Willard D. Blake, and ironically most of Cornell's early businesses ended up in the Amity part of town - several houses built in Cornell were even moved a few blocks down into Amity.

Cornell was officially organized as a town in 1873, centered on a block of public land that is today called North Park, with South Park added later.

In its early decades Cornell supported several grocery stores, a bank, four churches, a stockyard, a harness shop, and its own newspaper, the Cornell Journal.

Illinois Route 23 passes through Cornell, leading about 12 miles southeast to Pontiac, the county seat, and 14 miles northwest to Streator.

The 2020 census counted 446 people in Cornell, living in 166 households and 119 families, and the village's population peaked at 603 back in the 1980 census.