Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in Homewood, IL

Homewood is a village in Cook County, Illinois, about 22 miles south of Chicago's Loop, with a population of 19,463 at the 2020 census and roughly 7,100 households.

Homewood was officially incorporated in 1893, but its roots are older: James Hart platted a settlement called Hartford in 1853, and the local railroad stop was originally named Thornton Station after neighboring Thornton.

The U.S. Post Office recognized the name "Homewood" in 1869, replacing Thornton Station, and the Thornton Flour Mill Company had already built its mill in the village in 1856.

Homewood sits directly on the Calumet Shoreline — the sandy beach ridge of prehistoric glacial Lake Chicago, ancestor of Lake Michigan — and you can still see the ancient shoreline as the sand ridge running along Ridge Road.

The village's showpiece green space is the Izaak Walton Preserve, a 193-acre expanse of woodland, lakes and prairie carved out of an ancient glacial lake bed, with about 4 miles of gravel trails for walking, fishing, biking and dog-walking.

Homewood shares the Homewood-Flossmoor Park District with neighboring Flossmoor, which manages more than 365 acres across 32 parks and recreation spaces for the two villages.

Homewood students attend Homewood-Flossmoor High School, the large high school it shares with Flossmoor, which opened its doors in 1959.

Homewood's growth was transformed by the railroad and then the postwar boom: it had just 352 residents in 1900, about 3,000 by 1940, and then soared to nearly 18,000 by 1970 as subdivisions filled in.

In the 1920s Homewood became an important Illinois Central railroad depot community, and many railroad workers and their families settled in the village.

The village sits in a region rich in limestone deposits and neighbors the famous Thornton Quarry in nearby Thornton.