Limestone, IL

Limestone is a young village with an old name. Limestone Township has been on the map since 1853, while the village incorporated in 2006 along Illinois 17, about six miles west of Kankakee. The 2020 census counted 1,558 residents. The name reaches deeper still: local limestone formed under a shallow tropical sea hundreds of millions of years ago, and early settlers used stone from the area for fences. Nearby quarries still produce construction and agricultural materials. Today the village’s work is mostly municipal and regional. Village Hall sits on Route 17, where public-service, finance, and planning meetings handle the small-government business. Kankakee supplies the nearby county-center map, while the township’s fields, quarries, and the 1835 Hawkins Cemetery keep the older landscape visible. Limestone’s incorporated boundary is recent; the stone under its roads and the cemetery north of town belong to the county’s earliest settlement.