Biohazard Cleanup Near Creekside Matteson, IL

Matteson is a village in Rich Township, Cook County, and a south suburb of Chicago.

The area of modern Matteson was settled in the mid-1800s, primarily by people of German descent.

Matteson was platted in 1855 and had nearly 500 residents when it incorporated as a village in 1889.

The village is named for Joel Aldrich Matteson, who served as the tenth governor of Illinois from 1853 to 1857.

Improvements such as the electrification of the Illinois Central Railroad helped Matteson grow past 3,000 residents by the end of the 1960s.

Lincoln Mall opened in Matteson in 1973, annexing 195 acres of land for the village in the process; the mall closed in 2014 and was demolished in 2018.

The population of Matteson was 19,073 at the 2020 census, nearly unchanged from 19,009 in 2010.

Census Bureau figures put Matteson at about 7,400 households in recent estimates, averaging about 2.5 people per household.

For most of its history Matteson's population was majority white, but by the 2010 census about 78.7% of residents were African American, making it a majority-Black suburb.

Rich Township High School District 227, which operates the public high schools serving Matteson, has its headquarters in the village.