Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Hillsboro, IL

Hillsboro is a city in south-central Illinois and the county seat of Montgomery County.

Hillsboro was founded in 1823, when commissioners selected it as the permanent county seat; Newton Coffey donated the land, and the county's first courthouse was built in Hillsboro in 1824.

There is longstanding debate over the name: local tradition links it to the hilly terrain carved by the Shoal Creek watershed, while an early county history says the town was named after Hillsboro, North Carolina.

Hillsboro was incorporated as a city on March 26, 1913, ninety years after its founding.

The 2020 census counted 5,902 people in Hillsboro, and Census Bureau figures put the city at roughly 1,800 households, with about 78 percent of homes owner-occupied.

Hillsboro's city limits stretch more than 6 miles north of downtown so the city can encompass Glenn Shoals Lake, a reservoir on the Middle Fork of Shoal Creek that serves as its water supply and a recreation spot.

About 17 percent of Hillsboro's roughly 10.4 square miles is water, between Glenn Shoals Lake and the smaller Lake Hillsboro northeast of the city center - an unusual share for a small Illinois city.

Illinois Route 16 runs through the center of Hillsboro, linking it west to Litchfield and northeast toward Pana.

Local students attend Hillsboro High School, part of Hillsboro Community Unit School District No. 3, which enrolls about 420 students in grades 9 through 12.

Montgomery County itself was created in 1821 from Bond and Madison counties and named for Revolutionary War general Richard Montgomery, and Hillsboro has been its seat of government for over 200 years.