Discreet Biohazard Cleanup Near Wingate Rockton, IL

Rockton is a village in Winnebago County, Illinois, in the Rock River Valley within the Rockford metropolitan area, with a population of 7,863 at the 2020 census.

Rockton's first white settler was Stephen Mack Jr., who arrived in the 1830s and was married to Hononegah, a respected Native American woman of the region.

Mack founded the outpost of Macktown across the Rock River from present-day Rockton, while his rival William Talcott settled on the Rockton side after a disagreement between the two men.

When the bridge from Macktown to Rockton washed away in 1851, a year after Stephen Mack's death, Macktown's residents moved permanently across the river to Rockton.

Macktown, now preserved on the Rockton side of the river valley, is the only community from the 1830s in northern Illinois that still stands without later development.

Rockton is home to Hononegah Community High School, named for Hononegah, the Native American wife of the village's first settler.

Rockton has about 2,910 households, a median household income of about $119,058, and an owner-occupancy rate of about 81%, according to Census Bureau figures for 2020-2024.

Rockton has more than doubled in size in a generation, growing from 3,819 residents in 1990 to 7,863 in 2020 as the Rockford suburbs spread north.

On June 14, 2021, a massive fire with explosions destroyed the Chemtool lubricant plant in Rockton - a Lubrizol subsidiary that made greases and fluids - forcing the evacuation of everyone within a one-mile radius, though all roughly 70 plant workers escaped safely.

Firefighters deliberately let the Chemtool fire burn for days rather than douse it with water, to keep chemical runoff from reaching the nearby Rock River.