Morris is a city in and the county seat of Grundy County, Illinois, United States and part of the southwest Chicago metropolitan area. The population was 14,163 as of the 2020 census.

A team of ten anthropologists and sociologists from the nearby University of Chicago studied the city in depth and reported its findings in W. Lloyd Warner, editor, Democracy in Jonesville: A Study of Quality and Inequality (1949)."William Lloyd Warner" in Oxford Reference (2023) online

Geography Morris is located in northeast Grundy County along U.S. Route 6 and Illinois Route 47 and on the north side of the Illinois RiverIllinois Atlas & Gazetteer, DeLorme, 6th ed. 2010, p.35 Morris, IL, 7.5 Minute Topographic Quadrangle, USGS, 1953 (1981 rev) at an elevation of .

According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Morris has a total area of , of which (or 96.92%) is land and (or 3.08%) is water.

Climate The annual precipitation for Morris is about 40 inches. The record high for Morris is 109 °F (43 °C) on July 14, 1936. The record low for Morris is -26 °F (−32 °C) in December 1924. The average high temperature for Morris in July is 84.5 °F (43 °C), while the average January low is 15.4 °F (-9.2 °C).

Morris has not been struck by any major tornadoes in recent history, although they occur in Northern Illinois annually. Morris was the first town hit by the Super Outbreak of April 3–4, 1974. However, the damage within the city was relatively minor, and nobody was injured.

The city can receive heavy snowfall and experience blizzards periodically.

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, Morris had a population of 14,163. The median age was 39.9 years. 22.9% of residents were under the age of 18 and 18.6% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 96.5 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 92.4 males age 18 and over.

99.8% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.2% lived in rural areas.

There were 5,921 households in Morris, of which 28.8% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 43.7% were married-couple households, 20.1% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 28.2% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 33.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 15.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

There were 6,286 housing units, of which 5.8% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.1% and the rental vacancy rate was 7.7%.

+ Racial composition as of the 2020 census Race Number Percent White 11,753 83.0% Black or African American 309 2.2% American Indian and Alaska Native 53 0.4% Asian 166 1.2% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 9 0.1% Some other race 685 4.8% Two or more races 1,188 8.4% Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 1,884 13.3%

Income and poverty

The median income for a household in the city was $61,419, and the median income for a family was $73,750. Males had a median income of $47,209 versus $32,672 for females. The per capita income for the city was $32,024. About 6.5% of families and 10.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 18.3% of those under age 18 and 8.2% of those age 65 or over. Economy The Allen Paper Car Wheel Works were based on East North Street in Morris, which supplied the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago from 1867 to 1890 with composite wheels for their railway carriages.John H. Lienhard: Engines of Our Enginuity, No. 758: Paper railroad wheels. By the 1920s, the paper mill had become one of the largest employers in Morris, producing cardboard boxes of various shapes, sizes, and colors that were shipped throughout the US.Then & Now: Morris Paper Mills – Morris. In: The Herald-News, 18 October 2017.

The Lyondell Chemical Company is located about from the city center. The plant, located just off U.S. Route 6 heading eastbound away from Morris, employs many Morris residents. In addition to the chemical plant, three nuclear power plants are located within a radius of the center of Morris. The closest nuclear plant is only away, called the Dresden Nuclear Power Station. The LaSalle Nuclear Station is away, and Braidwood Generating Station is about away. All of the stations are owned by Exelon Corp. Among the stations, Dresden Generating Station generates energy for Chicago and surrounding areas.

Telephone switching history In early 1960, the world's first electronic switching system was installed at the Morris central office.W.H.C. Higgins, A Survey of Bell System Progress in Electronic Switching, Bell System Technical Journal Vol. 44(6), pp.937 (1965). The system was a milestone in telephone switching history, an experiment whose planning started in the early 1950s, and led to the largest sustained research and development program toward a single goal in the Bell System.W.A. Mac Nair, Bell Laboratories Record Vol. 49(6) (June 1965). After conversion of the existing manual telephone system using telephone operators for completing telephone calls, with an automatic electromechanical crossbar switching system starting in ca. 1958, a few hundred subscribers received dial service from June 1960 through January 1962 from the first mostly electronic system, that used cold-cathode electron tubes, instead of mechanical relays and switches. For telephone subscribers, the most notable characteristic of what is usually called the Morris System was the use of electronic tone ringers which used up to eight different tones produced by a tweeter, rather than the traditional bell ringer.

Education Much of Morris is in the Morris School District 54. Parts to the north are in the Saratoga Community Consolidated School District 60C, and some parts to the west are in the Nettle Creek Community Consolidated School District 24C. All of Morris is in the Morris Community High School District 101. - Text list

Notable people

Jessie Bartlett Davis, (c. 1859–1861–1905), operatic singer and actress Jack Boyle, (1889–1971), third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies Ed Brady, (b. 1960), former NFL linebacker Kelly Dransfeldt, (b. 1975), former shortstop for the Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox Careen M. Gordon, (b. 1972), Member of the Illinois House of Representatives from the 75th district from 2003 to 2011 Philip C. Hayes, (1833–1916), congressman Albert Kingsbury, (1863–1943), engineer, inventor and entrepreneur Eric J. Magnuson, (b. 1951), lawyer and Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court Billy Petrick, (b. 1984), former pitcher for the Chicago Cubs Walter M. Pierce, (1861–1954), congressman from Oregon's 2nd congressional district and 17th governor of Oregon Lyman Beecher Ray (1831–1916), lieutenant governor of Illinois 1889–93, politician and Morris shopkeeper Scott Spiezio, (b. 1972), former Major League Baseball third baseman Ronald Steel, (b. 1931), award-winning writer, historian, and professor James R. Washburn (1921–2007), Illinois state representative and mayor of Morris Jerry Weller, (b. 1957), former congressman from the 11th District of Illinois Anne Yatco, (b. 1984), voice actress

References

External links