Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Leonore Leonore, IL

Leonore is a village in Richland Township in southern LaSalle County, Illinois, about 15 miles southwest of Ottawa, the county seat, and part of the Ottawa Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Leonore was originally established in the late 1880s under the name Gary, as a station on the Illinois Valley & Northern Railroad.

The station was renamed Leonore in 1889 because there was already a post office named Gary, and Leonore was the favorite among the replacement names suggested.

Leonore was incorporated as a village on April 20, 1891, with the incorporation certified on June 15, 1891.

As of the 2020 census, Leonore had 121 residents living in 64 households, with 59 housing units in the village.

Leonore packs its residents tightly: the entire village covers only about 0.09 square miles, giving it a population density of roughly 1,360 people per square mile.

Leonore's population peaked at 277 in 1900, just a decade after incorporation, and the village has stayed a community of roughly 100 to 200 people ever since.

Leonore is known locally as the site of a bank robbery that went wrong, an event still retold in LaSalle County history features more than 75 years later.