Wilmington: The Island City on the Kankakee

Thomas Cox arrived on the Kankakee River in eighteen thirty-four, staked a claim on four hundred acres including a natural island in the river, and platted the settlement in eighteen thirty-six under the name Winchester. Two years later it was renamed Wilmington when it turned out another Winchester already existed in Illinois. The Kankakee splits around a small island here, giving the town its unofficial nickname, the Island City.

Cox built a sawmill using the river's current, and Wilmington grew into a modest trading stop. The Illinois and Michigan Canal to the north brought more commerce, and later the railroad sealed its place as a Will County waypoint. Route Sixty-Six passed through Wilmington in the nineteen twenties, and the town became known to travelers for the giant green Gemini Giant statue outside a roadside diner, a fiberglass spaceman holding a rocket that now stands at the entrance to South Island Park.