Hopedale, IL

Hopedale is a Tazewell County village in the Peoria metropolitan area, with 830 residents in the 2020 census. The village has small restaurants, general stores, parks, and a medical complex that serves residents from several surrounding counties. Olympia Community Unit School District 16 provides the school connection, while Hopedale’s location in the central Illinois farm belt keeps cornfields and county roads close to town. The most distinctive institution is Hopedale Medical Complex, a rural hospital and care campus that grew far beyond its original footprint.

Hopedale began with Aaron Orendorff, who settled nearby in 1827 and opened the area’s first school in 1832. The village was first called Osceola in 1853, then changed to Hopedale in 1869 when another Illinois post office already used the name. Tazewell County’s first government meeting took place at William Orendorff’s homestead just north of the village in April 1827. In 1955, Dr. Lawrence J. Rossi Sr. opened a 20-bed hospital with help from local farmers, residents, and volunteers; that effort grew into today’s hospital, nursing, living, wellness, and specialty-care complex. Hopedale is an Illinois village whose county history and rural medical story are unusually large for its size.