24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Cortland, IL

Cortland is an incorporated town in DeKalb County, incorporated on February 16, 1865, and it has kept the rare Illinois municipal status of 'town' rather than village or city.

Cortland proudly calls itself 'The Third Largest Town in Illinois,' since only the towns of Cicero and Normal have larger populations among Illinois incorporated towns.

The town was named after Cortland, New York, and a post office under the Cortland name has operated since 1892.

The surrounding township was first settled in October 1835, when a party of emigrants traveling an Indian trail after dark stumbled into a Native American village on the site; the township was first called Richland, then Pampas — for its resemblance to the South American plains — before the legislature renamed it Cortland in 1864.

The first schoolhouse in the township was a log hut built at Ohio Grove about 1838.

Cortland's population was 4,398 at the 2020 census, having more than doubled from 2,066 in 2000 to 4,270 in 2010 as new subdivisions replaced surrounding farmland.

Census survey estimates count roughly 1,300 housing units in Cortland, with a median resident age of about 32 — young for the region — reflecting the young families drawn by its growth.

Located along Illinois Route 38 between DeKalb and Sycamore, about 60 miles west of Chicago, Cortland's modern growth is driven by its position between those two larger DeKalb County cities.

Cortland's children are served by the DeKalb Community Unit School District, and the town markets itself on hometown living in a rural DeKalb County setting despite its rapid suburban-style growth.