Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Petersburg, IL

Petersburg is a city in and the county seat of Menard County in central Illinois, set on bluffs and floodplain overlooking the Sangamon River.

Petersburg was founded in 1833 as a planned town organized by land speculators Peter Lukins, for whom the town is named, and George Warburton.

Abraham Lincoln, then working as a surveyor, mapped, measured, and helped divide the lots of the new town of Petersburg.

When Menard County was created in 1839, Petersburg became its county seat, and the town drew off the population of nearby New Salem, which was abandoned by 1840.

Petersburg is the gateway to Lincoln's New Salem State Historic Site, the reconstructed log-cabin village 2 miles south of town where Lincoln lived from 1831 to 1837; the site draws more than half a million visitors a year.

Petersburg had 2,258 residents at the 2020 census, living in 992 households, almost unchanged from 2,260 a decade earlier.

Petersburg's population has stayed between roughly 2,250 and 2,850 in every census since 1880, peaking at 2,842 in 1890.

Many Victorian-era homes built by Petersburg's early wealthy residents still stand on its bluffs, and the city has preserved some of its original cobblestone streets.

After major flood damage in 1993, Petersburg and Menard County bought out the most flood-prone low-lying housing along the Sangamon River and turned the land into a small series of parks.

The Edgar Lee Masters Home, the home of the Spoon River Anthology author at Eighth and Jackson streets, is preserved and open to visitors seasonally.