Biohazard Cleanup Near Mockingbird Hills Troy, IL

Troy is a city in Madison County, Illinois, in the Metro-East portion of the St. Louis metropolitan area, about 20 miles northeast of downtown St. Louis.

Troy was platted in 1819, incorporated as a town on February 18, 1857, and then incorporated as a city in 1892.

Troy and its namesake Troy, Missouri, in Lincoln County are one of the few pairs of same-named municipalities that belong to the same metropolitan statistical area.

Interstates 55 and 70 run together through the west side of Troy, with access from Exits 17 and 18, while U.S. Route 40 passes through the south side of the city.

Troy was a small farming town for most of its history — just 1,154 people in 1940 — but Interstate-era growth pushed it to 9,888 people in 2010 and 10,960 in the 2020 census.

The 2020 census counted 10,960 Troy residents living in 4,307 households, with a median age of 37.2 years.

Troy is served by Triad Community Unit School District 2, which operates Henning Elementary School, Silver Creek Elementary School, and Triad High School within the city.

Future U.S. Senator Paul Simon came to Troy at age 19 and rescued the Troy Tribune newspaper, becoming the nation's youngest editor-publisher; he used the paper to expose crime and corruption in Madison County and testified before the U.S. Senate's crime investigating committee at age 22 in 1951.

The Troy Tribune that Paul Simon built into a chain of newspapers still publishes today as the Troy Times-Tribune, and the city honors him with the U.S. Sen. Paul Simon Museum.

Jesse L. Simpson, who became Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, was born in Troy, and 1958 Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Bob Turley is also a Troy native.