Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near West Danvers Danvers, IL

Danvers is a village in McLean County, Illinois, about 12 miles northwest of Bloomington, and part of the Bloomington-Normal metropolitan area.

Danvers was laid out on February 20, 1836, by Israel W. Hall and Matthew Robb under the name Concord, after Concord, Massachusetts, during McLean County's 1836 town-founding surge.

A rival town, Wilkesborough, was laid out the same year just a mile east of Danvers, but Danvers won out and Wilkesborough faded away.

Because Illinois already had several towns named Concord, the name was changed to Danvers in 1861, after Danvers, Massachusetts, and the village was incorporated under a special charter on May 7, 1869.

The first settler in the township, Ephraim Stout, arrived in the fall of 1825, and the landmark timber known as Stout's Grove gave its name to the area's first post office in 1848.

Danvers became the center of one of the most productive agricultural districts in McLean County, even though both the Illinois Central and the Chicago and Alton railroads originally passed it by.

Danvers was once known for its 'drift gas' wells - shallow wells tapping natural gas formed from vegetation buried in glacial drift - and more than 70 of them operated in the Danvers area at their peak.

The 2020 census counted 1,089 residents in Danvers; in 2000 the village had 1,183 residents in 426 households.

Danvers belongs to Olympia Community Unit School District 16, whose 377-square-mile territory is the largest school district in Illinois, and Olympia North Elementary School, opened in 2009, stands on the east side of the village.

The village covers about 0.86 square miles.