Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Schram City, IL

Schram City is a village in Montgomery County that was formed by merging two neighboring industrial settlements - Schram, built around a glass jar factory, and Kortkamp, a coal-mining town.

The village takes its name from the Schram Automatic Sealer Company, whose glass plant, begun in January 1906, manufactured the Schram automatic fruit jar and was described at the time as the largest exclusive fruit jar plant in the world.

The Schram plant initially employed about 125 people and shipped jars by the carload, sparking a burst of house-building just south of the factory.

Kortkamp, the other half of today's village, grew up around a coal mine sunk by Hillsboro businessmen, with William Kortkamp as the mine manager.

A schoolhouse was built midway between the two settlements, and the two towns united into a single incorporated village in 1907 under the name Schram City, with the shared schoolhouse at its center.

Schram City's population peaked at 1,200 in the 1920 census, during its glass-and-coal boom years.

The village's population had fallen to 563 by the 2020 census, less than half of its 1920 peak.

Schram City is bordered to the north, west, and south by Hillsboro, the Montgomery County seat.

The village covers just 0.67 square miles, all land, and is drained by tributaries of the Middle Fork of Shoal Creek, part of the Kaskaskia River watershed.