Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Westchester, IL

Westchester is a village in Cook County, Illinois, a western suburb located about 14 miles directly west of downtown Chicago.

The area that became Westchester was settled by German farmers beginning in the mid-19th century, in a German farming community known as Franzosenbusch.

Utilities magnate Samuel Insull purchased the land in 1924 and planned an English-style town, which is why Westchester's name and the majority of its street names are of English origin.

Westchester was incorporated in 1926, after a rapid transit line connecting the village to Chicago made its location ideal for residential development.

Westchester had 16,892 residents at the 2020 census, a population that has stayed remarkably stable for decades, up only slightly from 16,718 in 2010.

Westchester has about 6,900 households according to Census Bureau survey estimates for 2020-2024, with an average of about 2.4 people per household.

Westchester is home to the Wolf Road Prairie Nature Preserve, an 80-plus-acre remnant of original tallgrass prairie that the Illinois Department of Natural Resources calls the largest prairie of its type remaining in the Chicago area.

Wolf Road Prairie protects more than 360 native Illinois plant species, and visitors can still see sidewalks laid out for a subdivision that was abandoned when the Great Depression hit.

At the north end of the prairie stands the circa-1850s Franzosenbusch Prairie House, considered the oldest structure in Westchester, which around 1853 held the first Lutheran schoolroom and teacher's quarters in Proviso Township.

Less than one one-hundredth of one percent of Illinois' original high-quality prairie survives today, which makes Westchester's protected prairie remnant especially significant.