” Orangeville, IL USDA Loan”

Orangeville is a village in Stephenson County, Illinois, United States. The town’s sign lists the population at 800 as of January 2021. The population in 2020 was 738. The population according to the 2010 census was 793, up from 751 in 2000. Using the 2020 population of 738 Orangeville is the 741st largest city in Illinois and the 11,650th largest city in the United States. Orangeville is currently declining at a rate of -0.94% annually and its population has decreased by -6.94% since the 2010 census. The area’s earliest white settlers arrived in the year 1833, and the village was platted in 1851 by John Bower, who is considered the village founder. In 1867 Orangeville was incorporated as a village. The town’s central business district contains several 19th century commercial buildings, many of which were built during the railroad boom of 1888–1914. By the time the Great Depression was ongoing, business in Orangeville had started to decline, with the last bank closing in 1932. In 1956 another bank started operating in the village and is still in town today. Some recent infrastructure jumps have restored some of the village’s old decor.

Orangeville is about two miles (3 km) south of the Illinois – Wisconsin border and about 35 miles (56 km) west of Rockford, Illinois. Orangeville is located directly off of Illinois Route 26 between Monroe, Wisconsin and Freeport, Illinois. The town itself is located in farmland surrounded by vale and rises from Richland Creek on its west end, down High Street and into the central business district, where the Central House hotel occupies the highest lot. Public education in Orangeville is the responsibility of Orangeville Community School District #203 which previously operated an elementary school on the south side and a combination junior and senior high school on the east side. In 2019 the district combined the elementary school with the joint high school on the east side to create the Orangeville High School. The previous elementary school was converted to a multi-family complex.

Before 1837, the area was occupied by Native Americans who utilized it for hunting grounds; the Sioux tribe had a camp near Oneco. Game that populated the Orangeville area included buffalo and deer. John H. Curtis purchased the 80 acres (32 ha) of land, which included the area that would eventually become Orangeville, on January 1, 1838, at the Dixon Land Office. Curtis constructed a dam on Richland Creek, and on the creek’s west bank erected a gristmill and a saw mill. Curtis died in 1843 and both mills stood idle until John Bower arrived in 1846, with his family, after having visited the area the year before. Bower purchased the 80 acres (32 ha) and the mills.

Throughout the 1830s and 1840s farmers from New York and Pennsylvania, known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, arrived to settle the area around present-day Orangeville. Of the first 14 settlers to the area, 13 were Pennsylvania Dutch, the 14th was a German immigrant. A Dr. Thomas Van Valsah led a wagon train from Pennsylvania to Stephenson County in 1837.

The village of Orangeville was founded by John Bower, popularly confused as “Bowers.” Bower came to Stephenson County in 1845 and, on October 16, 1846, bought the land that would be platted as Orangeville from for $950. Bower built the Union House in 1849 on a portion of what became Orangeville in 1851. Though the town was platted by Bower in 1851, it was not incorporated until 1867. A drawing of the plat was done by surveyor Marcus Montelius and indicated that Orangeville has always been known as Orangeville; several publications have asserted that the town began as Bowersville or Bowers Mills and underwent a name change in 1854. It is possible that the incorrect name Bowersville was a misremembered version of “Bower’s mill”. The plat also showed 48 original town lots.