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Channahon is a village in Grundy and Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. The population was 13,706 at the 2020 census. Located in a rural area southwest of Joliet, Illinois, most of the village is within Channahon Township in Will County. The current village president is Missey Moorman Schumacher. [edit] History
Its name meaning "Meeting of the Waters" in the language of the area's original Potawatomi inhabitants, Channahon is located at the confluence of the Des Plaines and Kankakee rivers, where they form the Illinois River. The Illinois and Michigan Canal (including several locks) runs through most of the village, where it is fed by the water of the DuPage River. The local Channahon State Park celebrates the region's unique geographical history. Later in the 19th century, a railroad line that eventually came under the control of the Santa Fe Railroad was laid through the eastern portions of the township, but no railroad actually passed through the village itself. In the late 1920s, U.S. Highway 6 came through Channahon; Interstates 80 and 55 followed in the 1960s (although I-80 runs approximately two miles to the north of the village limits). The Village of Channahon grew along the I & M Canal at the intersection of three rivers (i.e., DuPage, Des Plaines, and Kankakee Rivers.) An early archaeological excavation in the 1900s unearthed mound remnants that pointed to three to four thousand years of history. The Potawatomi natives named this area and called it Channahon, which means "meeting of the waters". The Potawatomi natives solely inhabited this area until white settlers began to settle here in 1832. In 1836, construction began on the I & M Canal and Channahon became the site for one of the locks that were needed along the waterway. The village itself was laid out by Myrvin Benjamin, and for a while it was called DuPage after the river that cut through the area. In the 1840s, the name of the area became Swifton after the I & M Canal board president. This area continued to thrive until the railroad replaced inland boat travel, which caused business to decline. In the early 1900s, the automobile began to emerge as a new form of transportation. In June 1908, the owner of an automobile planned to sue the village after their automobile plummeted into the Du Page River due to a bridge failure. According to legend, this incident was one of the factors in the decision of the village fathers to discard an earlier established corporate charter. On December 11, 1961, the area was once again incorporated as the village of Channahon. Serious development finally begun in the 1970's as the village's proximity to two trunk line interstates resulted in both industrial growth (a Mobil oil refinery, two petrochemicals plants, a gigantic soybean oil production facility, CenterPoint Intermodal Center to the east in Elwood, Illinois, numerous warehouses to the east in both Elwood and Joliet, Illinois, including Amazon (company), Walmart distribution centers, and Cargill) and residential development. The village also saw an influx of population from eastern Kentucky in the wake of the closure of many of that area's coal mines. A major natural gas pipeline to the Chicago area from Canada had its southern terminus built in Channahon in 2000. Channahon, once a farming community, has developed into an affluent suburb of Chicago. [edit] Research Tips
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