Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Mazon Mazon, IL

Mazon is a village in Grundy County, Illinois, near the center of the county, covering only about 0.61 square miles.

The name Mazon derives from the Potawatomi word 'mzan,' meaning nettles.

Mazon was established and organized as a village in 1876, and it was incorporated under the general state law in 1895.

Mazon was formerly served by the Santa Fe railway at the Mazon Depot.

Mazon's population was 979 at the 2020 census, down slightly from 1,015 in 2010.

Mazon sits near the world-famous Mazon Creek fossil beds, where fossils preserved in ironstone concretions have been collected since about 1857 and the locality was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997.

The Mazon Creek fossils, about 309 million years old from the Carboniferous period, give scientists one of the most complete records of a Paleozoic ecosystem anywhere in the world, with more than 320 animal species identified.

Illinois' state fossil, the bizarre Tully Monster (Tullimonster), was first found in nearby Mazon Creek in 1958 by collector Francis Tully, and it has been found nowhere else on Earth.

The fossil-bearing Francis Creek Shale near Mazon preserves even soft-bodied creatures such as jellyfish and sea worms, which almost never fossilize elsewhere.

The surrounding Mazon Township, established in 1849, had 1,503 residents at the 2020 census.