Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in West Chicago, IL

Despite its name, West Chicago is not part of Chicago at all; it is a separate city in DuPage County, about 30 miles west of the Loop, with a population of 25,614 at the 2020 census.

West Chicago was the first community in Illinois created by the railroads: when the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad arrived in 1849 and a second line joined it in 1850, the spot became the first railroad junction in Illinois.

The town was first called Junction, and railroad president John B. Turner recorded its first plat in 1855; residents incorporated as the Village of Turner in 1873 in his honor.

On January 25, 1896, the village renamed itself West Chicago, hoping a name tied to the big city would attract new industry, and it incorporated as a city in 1906.

Erastus Gary, one of the area's earliest settlers, homesteaded 760 acres along the DuPage River in the 1830s, and the nearby city of Gary, Indiana, traces its name to his family.

West Chicago is home to the Truitt-Hoff Nature Preserve in the West Chicago Prairie Forest Preserve, one of the largest and best-preserved tallgrass prairies in the Midwest, saved because the land lay in a railroad right-of-way and was never plowed.

From 1947 to 1981 Campbell's Soup ran its Prince Crossing mushroom farm west of town as a company town of about 200 people, the last existing company town in Illinois.

West Chicago has a large Mexican-American community, about 51 percent of residents identified as Hispanic in the 2010 census, with many families tracing their roots to the Mexican state of Michoacán after arriving to work in railroad boxcar camps and the mushroom farm.

The city is served by Metra's Union Pacific West Line and is home to DuPage Airport, one of the busiest general-aviation airports in Illinois.

West Chicago Community High School, whose teams are the Wildcats, opened at its Joliet Street site in 1926 and is the city's only public high school.