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Wikipedia / Mount Carroll, Illinois

Mount Carroll is a city in and the county seat of Carroll County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,479 at the 2020 census.

History

Mount Carroll began as a mill town around 1841. In 1843, a referendum moved the county seat from nearby Savanna to Mount Carroll. The town was incorporated in 1855 and became a city in 1867; the first mayor was Nathaniel Halderman, a prominent local businessman and co-founder of the mill.

Shimer College was established in Mt. Carroll in 1853, but mounting debts forced a move to Waukegan in 1979 and subsequently to Chicago in 2006. The campus now is home to several organizations, most notably the Campbell Center for Historic Preservation Studies.

Geography

Mount Carroll is located slightly northwest of the center of Carroll County. U.S. Route 52 passes through the southern part of the city, leading east to Lanark and west to Savanna on the Mississippi River.

According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Mount Carroll has a total area of , all land.

Climate

Mt. Carroll has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dfa), with cold winters, hot summers, and four seasons. Annual precipitation is about 40 inches.

Due to its elevation and northwesterly location, Mount Carroll is subject to unusually cold winter weather. From 1930 to 1999, Mount Carroll held the record for the lowest temperature ever recorded in Illinois, , recorded on January 22, 1930. The record was beaten by Congerville in 1999, by one degree Fahrenheit. 20 years later, on January 31, 2019, during an extreme cold snap, Mount Carroll regained the title of coldest city in Illinois when a new Illinois state record low temperature of was officially recorded.

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, Mount Carroll had a population of 1,479. The median age was 51.5 years. 16.0% of residents were under the age of 18 and 28.9% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 94.3 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 94.8 males age 18 and over.

The population density was . There were 812 housing units at an average density of . There were 403 families residing in the city.

0.0% of residents lived in urban areas, while 100.0% lived in rural areas.

Among households, 20.7% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 43.2% were married-couple households, 21.3% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 26.0% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 34.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 17.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

Of housing units, 17.2% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2.2% and the rental vacancy rate was 21.2%.

Income and poverty

The median income for a household in the city was $54,821, and the median income for a family was $62,788. Males had a median income of $42,396 versus $30,387 for females. The per capita income for the city was $27,966. About 6% of families and 10.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 19.7% of those under age 18 and 5.5% of those age 65 or over.

Arts and culture

Mount Carroll enjoys a remarkable concentration of historically and architecturally significant structures. The bulk of the town's downtown and older residential area are included in the Mount Carroll Historic District, which encompasses and was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Mount Carroll is also home to the Campbell Center for Historic Preservation Studies, located on the historic former Shimer College campus near the south edge of town.

The Timber Lake Playhouse, the oldest semiprofessional summer stock theater company in Illinois, is located southeast of Mount Carroll. The Mount Carroll post office contains an oil on canvas mural, Rural Scene - Wakarusa Valley, painted by Irene Bianucci in 1941. Federally commissioned murals were produced from 1934 to 1943 in the United States through the Section of Painting and Sculpture, later called the Section of Fine Arts, of the Treasury Department.

Transportation

The former Milwaukee Road line from Chicago to Omaha runs through Mount Carroll.

Education

Mount Carroll is in the West Carroll Community Unit School District 314.

Notable people

Photos

References