Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Sumner Sumner, IL

Sumner is a small city in Lawrence County, in southeastern Illinois, that started in the early 1850s as a stop along the Ohio and Mississippi Railway.

Sumner was first known as 'Black Jack' when its post office opened in 1852, and it was renamed in 1855 for Benjamin Sumner, an early settler; the city incorporated in 1887.

Sumner had a population of 2,631 at the 2020 census - but roughly 2,000 of the people counted were inmates of the Lawrence Correctional Center, the state prison located there.

Because of the prison population, men make up about 90% of Sumner's counted residents, and Sumner is sometimes reported as the American town with the highest male-to-female ratio of anywhere in the country.

The prison's presence made Sumner's census count explode by 210.6% in a single decade, from 1,022 people in 2000 to 3,174 in 2010, before settling back to 2,631 in 2020.

Outside the prison walls, Sumner is a tiny community of just 280 households and 218 families, in a city of only 1.40 square miles.

Sumner lies along Illinois Route 250 just south of U.S. Route 50, and Red Hills State Park sits just northeast of the city.

Sumner was the birthplace of brothers Lester and Walter Melrose, the pioneering jazz and blues music producers behind the Melrose music publishing business.

The found-footage horror film 'Unlisted Owner' was shot in and around Sumner in 2011-2013 by a local production company.