Blue Island, Illinois

Blue Island, Illinois
City
Flag Seal Logo
Nickname:  The City on the Hill
Motto:  "Discover Blue Island: The Historic Heart of Chicago Southland"
Location of Blue Island in Cook County, Illinois.
Blue Island, Illinois Location within the state of Illinois Show map of Illinois Blue Island, Illinois Blue Island, Illinois (the United States) Show map of the United States
Coordinates: 41°39′26″N 87°40′48″W / 41.65722°N 87.68000°W / 41.65722; -87.68000
Country	United States
State	Illinois
Counties	Cook
Townships	Bremen, Worth, Thornton
Settled	1835
Incorporated	October 26, 1872
Government
• Type	Mayor-council government
• Mayor	Fred Bilotto (United Blue Island)
• City Council	Aldermen 1st Ward Dexter Johnson 2nd Ward Luiz Montoya 3rd Ward Nancy Rita 4th Ward Bill Fahrenwald 5th Ward Gabriel McGee 6th Ward Candace Carr 7th Ward Josh Roll
• State House	Robert Rita (D)
• State Senate	Emil Jones, Jr. (D)
• U.S. House	Representatives 1st District Jonathan Jackson (D) 2nd District Robin Kelly (D)
Area [1]
• Total	4.16 sq mi (10.77 km2)
• Land	4.07 sq mi (10.54 km2)
• Water	0.09 sq mi (0.22 km2)  2.16%
Elevation	640 ft (195 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	22,558
• Density	5,541.14/sq mi (2,139.34/km2)
• Demonym	Blue Islander
Time zone	UTC−6 (CST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−5 (CDT)
ZIP code	60406[2]
Area codes	708/464
FIPS code	17-06704
Website	www.blueisland.org

Blue Island is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States, located approximately 16 miles (26 km) south of Chicago's Loop.^[3] Blue Island is adjacent to the city of Chicago and shares its northern boundary with that city's Morgan Park neighborhood. The population was 22,558 at the 2020 United States Census.

Blue Island was established in the 1830s as a way station for settlers traveling on the Vincennes Trace,^[4] and the settlement prospered because it was conveniently situated a day's journey outside of Chicago. The late-nineteenth-century historian and publisher Alfred T. Andreas made the following observation regarding the appearance of the young community in History of Cook County Illinois (1884), "The location of Blue Island Village is a beautiful one. Nowhere about Chicago is there to be found a more pleasant and desirable resident locality."^[5]

Since its founding, the city has been an important commercial center in the south Cook County region, although its position in that respect has been eclipsed in recent years as other significant population centers developed around it and the region's commercial resources became spread over a wider area. In addition to its broad long-standing industrial base, the city enjoyed notable growth in the 1840s during the construction of the feeder canal (now the Calumet Sag Channel) for the Illinois and Michigan Canal and as the center of a large brick-making industry beginning in the 1850s, which eventually gave Blue Island the status of brick-making capital of the world.^[6] Beginning in 1883, Blue Island was also host to the car shops of the Rock Island Railroad.^[7] Blue Island was home to several breweries, who used the east side of the hill to store their product before the advent of refrigeration, until the Eighteenth Amendment made these breweries illegal in 1919. A large regional hospital and two major clinics are also located in the city.

Although initially settled by "Yankee" stock, Blue Island has been the point of entry for many of America's immigrants, beginning in the 1840s with the arrival of a large German population that remained a prominent part of the city's ethnic makeup for many years. By 1850, half of Blue Island's population was either foreign-born or the children of foreign-born residents.^[8] Later, significant groups came from Italy, Poland, Sweden and Mexico.

The city is one of eleven incorporated areas in Illinois to have been designated by the White House as a "Preserve America" community.^[9]