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Peoria, Illinois, was incorporated as a village on March 11, 1835. When it was incorporated on April 21, 1845, as a city, it ended the village president form of government and began the mayoral system. Peoria’s first mayor was William Hale.

Peoria (named after the Peoria Indian tribe) is the largest city on the Illinois River, and the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois. As of 2007, it had a population of approximately 144,000. It sits midway between Chicago and St. Louis.

In 1830, John Hamlin constructed the flour mill on Kickapoo Creek—and so began the city’s first industry. In 1837, E. F. Nowland started another big industry, the pork industry. Over the years a number of industries have cropped up in Peoria, including carriage factories, pottery makers, breweries, wholesale warehousing, casting foundries, glucose factories, ice harvesting, farm machinery manufacturing, and furniture making.

Peoria won the All-America City Award three times, in 1953, 1966, and 1989. In 2007, Forbes ranked Peoria number forty-seven out of the largest 150 metropolitan areas in its annual “Best Places for Business and Careers.” Forbes evaluated the city on the cost of doing business, cost of living, entertainment opportunities, and income growth. In 2009, Peoria was ranked sixteenth best city with a population of a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand in the “U.S. Next Cities List,” compiled by Next Generation Consulting.

And who hasn’t heard the famous question: Will it play in Peoria? The phrase originated during the days of vaudeville in the early 1920s and 1930s. At that time Peoria was one of the most important places in the country for vaudeville acts to perform. Because Peoria was considered the “typical” American town, new live acts and shows were booked into theaters in Peoria to test the reactions of audiences. If an act did well in Peoria, vaudeville companies knew that it would work throughout the nation.

Today Peoria is still used as a test market by advertisers trying to determine how popular products and ideas will fare around the country.

Peoria also has everything its residents could want: affordable housing, great schools and colleges, excellent medical facilities, shopping, arts and entertainment, and many recreational areas. But despite its growth, Peoria still exudes Midwestern friendliness and warmth.

But there’s a seedy side to Peoria—a side inhabited by prostitutes and drug addicts and those who prey on them. A side of the city where a thirtysomething mama’s boy could go seemingly unnoticed on a fifteen-month killing spree.