Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Godfrey, IL

Godfrey is a village in Madison County named for Captain Benjamin Godfrey, a native New Englander who arrived in the area in 1832.

Captain Godfrey, the father of eight daughters and an early advocate of higher education for women, gave funds and land to establish the Monticello Female Seminary in Godfrey in 1838.

Monticello — later Monticello College — became the second-oldest women's college in America and operated as a two-year college for women until its campus was sold in 1970.

The Monticello campus was purchased to create Lewis and Clark Community College, which opened in 1970 and still has its main campus on the historic grounds; Monticello's final class graduated in 1971.

Although its roots go back to the 1830s, the Village of Godfrey itself was not incorporated until 1991, making it one of the newest municipalities in Illinois.

Godfrey remains a village despite spanning more than 36 square miles — the entire northwest corner of Madison County — making it unusually large in area for a village.

The 2020 census counted 17,825 people in Godfrey, living in 7,419 households.

The southwestern edge of Godfrey is a wall of 200-foot-high limestone bluffs along the Mississippi River, and the village forms part of the River Bend area of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan region.

Godfrey sits between two great river confluences: the Illinois River empties into the Mississippi about 12 miles upstream, and the Missouri River joins it about 10 miles downstream, near where the Lewis and Clark expedition began.

Godfrey students attend schools in Alton Community Unit School District 11.