Marquette Heights, IL

Marquette Heights is a Tazewell County city on the bluffs above the Illinois River valley, just southeast of Peoria. The 2020 census counted 2,541 residents. Illinois 29 and Interstate 474 frame the city, while Peoria, East Peoria, and Pekin supply the larger regional map. Marquette Heights feels less like an old county-seat town than a postwar neighborhood that grew into its own city, with wooded streets and houses spread across a compact hilltop.

Residents voted to incorporate in 1956, when workers at nearby Caterpillar plants were looking for homes within reach of Peoria’s industrial base. Caterpillar’s Power Parade passed through in 1964, and the city later became known for Spook Hollow, an outdoor haunted attraction that began in 1979. Parks, trails, and the bluff setting soften the industrial history without erasing it. Marquette Heights is a Peoria suburb with a very specific origin story: factory jobs below, new homes above, and a city government created to hold the neighborhood together.