Biohazard Cleanup Near North Whiting Whiting, IN

Whiting is a small city in Lake County on the southern shore of Lake Michigan, about 16 miles from the Chicago Loop, and part of the Chicago metropolitan area.

Whiting was founded in 1889, the same year Standard Oil of Indiana established the great refinery that would define the city.

A post office opened at Whiting in 1871; the community, named for a trainman killed in a railroad crash there, incorporated as a town in 1895 and as a city in 1903.

Whiting had 4,559 residents at the 2020 census, down from its peak of 5,163 in 1990.

Census Bureau survey estimates count roughly 1,525 households in Whiting, averaging about three people per household.

The BP Whiting Refinery is the largest oil refinery in the Midwest, spanning about 1,400 acres across Whiting, Hammond and East Chicago.

The Whiting Refinery processes more than 400,000 barrels of crude oil a day and employs about 1,800 people.

By the mid-1890s the Whiting plant was the largest refinery in the United States, handling 36,000 barrels a day, nearly 20 percent of the nation's refining capacity.

Scientists at Whiting, including future Standard Oil president William Merriam Burton, patented the 'thermal cracking' process, which doubled the amount of gasoline that could be made from a barrel of oil.

Every July, Whiting's Pierogi Fest celebrates the city's Eastern European heritage and draws more than 250,000 visitors to a city of fewer than 5,000 people.