Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Lawrenceville, IL

Lawrenceville is the county seat and largest city of Lawrence County in southeastern Illinois, and the city government notes it was incorporated in 1835.

Both the city and county take their name from Captain James Lawrence, the U.S. Navy officer killed in the War of 1812 whose dying command, "Don't give up the ship," became one of the most famous slogans in American naval history.

Lawrenceville sits along the Embarras River in the Wabash River valley, just northwest of Vincennes, Indiana, one of the oldest towns in the Midwest.

The discovery of oil in the Illinois Basin in the early 1900s transformed Lawrenceville almost overnight - its population jumped from 1,300 in 1900 to 3,235 in 1910, a rise of nearly 149 percent in a single decade.

Lawrenceville's population peaked at 6,328 in 1950 during the oil era, and the 2020 census counted 4,164 residents living in 1,796 households.

The city covers only about 2.16 square miles, making it a compact county seat with a population density of more than 1,900 people per square mile.

U.S. Route 50 and Illinois Route 1 both pass through Lawrenceville, and the city promotes the Lawrenceville-Vincennes International Airport as one of the largest airports in Illinois.

Lawrenceville High School, part of Community Unit School District 20, serves the city; the district replaced the old high school building, which dated to 1938, with a new campus on a roughly 52-acre site in the southwest part of town.

Lawrence County itself was created in 1821 from parts of Crawford and Edwards counties, making Lawrenceville the governmental center of one of Illinois' earlier-organized counties.

The Lawrence County Courthouse anchors downtown Lawrenceville, and the city describes itself as the historic centerpiece of southeastern Illinois.