Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Gifford, IL

Gifford is a small village in Champaign County that was laid out in 1876 and named for Benjamin F. Gifford.

Gifford grew up as a railroad town with a station on the Illinois Central Railroad line it shared with nearby Penfield.

On August 9, 1894, a fire that started in a barbershop and billiard hall destroyed Gifford's entire business district along with its grain elevator.

Gifford's population was 911 at the 2020 census, down slightly from 975 in 2010.

The 2000 census counted 815 people living in Gifford in 301 households, and the whole village covers only about 0.44 square miles of land.

On November 17, 2013, an EF3 tornado with winds of 140 miles per hour cut a diagonal path through the center of Gifford, destroying roughly 30 homes and damaging around 200 others.

Remarkably, nobody was killed in the 2013 Gifford tornado and only six people were injured, even though the storm tracked nearly 30 miles and caused about $60 million in damage in Champaign County.

Gifford Grade School, whose roof was peeled back by the tornado, reopened to students just one week after the storm.

Gifford is home to the Shortline Railroad Prairie, six acres of abandoned railroad right-of-way preserved as native prairie by the Grand Prairie Friends.

Gifford is the hometown of Michael Frerichs, who went on to become Treasurer of the State of Illinois.