Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Mound City, IL

Mound City is a city in and the county seat of Pulaski County, Illinois, standing on the Ohio River just north of its confluence with the Mississippi River.

Mound City was incorporated in 1857 as a union of two towns — Mound City, founded by Major General Moses Marshal Rawlings, and Emporium City, a project of Cincinnati and Cairo businessmen.

The city took its name from a Native American mound on which guests at General Rawlings' hotel would sleep in summer, because the breezes cooled them and kept the mosquitoes away.

During the Civil War, Mound City became a major Union naval station after the Mississippi River Squadron's base outgrew Cairo; its shipyard, foundry, marine barracks and hospital covered 10 acres purchased in 1862.

Three famous Eads ironclad gunboats — the USS Cairo, USS Cincinnati and USS Mound City — were built at the Mound City marine ways, and the USS Cairo went on to become the first ship in history sunk by an electrically detonated torpedo, on December 12, 1862.

The Mound City Civil War Naval Hospital could hold 1,000 to 1,500 patients and was described as one of the best-administered military hospitals in the West; both it and the Mound City National Cemetery are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Mound City became the Pulaski County seat in 1868, when the seat was moved from Caledonia.

Mound City's population peaked at 2,837 in 1910 during its river-trade era and had declined to 526 by the 2020 census.

The 2020 census counted a majority African American population in Mound City, with about 56 percent of residents identifying as Black or African American.

Mound City was home to Lovejoy High School from about 1909 to 1961, a school for African American students named for abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy, whose teams were the Pirates in purple and gold.