Biohazard Cleanup Near Danforth Historic District Danforth, IL

Danforth is a village in northwestern Iroquois County that was laid out in 1872 when the railroad was extended to that point.

The village was named for its founder, George M. Danforth, who with his brother A. H. Danforth bought nearly 50,000 acres of Iroquois County land from the government and the Illinois Central Railroad between 1854 and 1860.

Much of the Danforth brothers' land was swampy prairie that had to be drained to increase its value, and thirty Dutch families were among the settlers who arrived in 1872, bringing drainage skills well suited to the wet Kankakee River valley.

A railroad switch and station had already been established at the Danforth site in 1865, seven years before the village itself was laid out.

Henry R. Danforth opened a store at the site in April 1866 whose first month's receipts were only $1.50, and he went on to commence banking in the village in 1873.

Danforth had 594 residents at the 2020 census, living in 226 households and 119 families, and the village started out with most of its population being farmers and their families.

The village covers just 0.48 square miles in Danforth Township, in the flat corn country of northeastern Illinois.

Danforth is typical of Iroquois County's small farm villages - the county's population has grown only about 19 percent since 1870, as large mechanized farms came to need ever fewer farm hands.