Explored in 1673, Built Up After World War II
The area around Crest Hill was first explored by Louis Joliet and Père Marquette in 1673 as they passed through on their route toward the Mississippi, but the city as it exists today is mostly a product of the twentieth century: a post-World War II building boom brought new residential subdivisions and veterans' housing starting in the 1940s. Crest Hill incorporated as a village on January 22, 1960 -- specifically to avoid annexation by the City of Joliet and to keep the tax revenue from a shopping center then under development -- with a population of 5,887 at incorporation. It became a city in 1969, and by 1970 its population had reached 7,460, a 26.7 percent jump driven by continued subdivision construction.
Postwar Subdivisions and Aging Drainage Infrastructure
Subdivisions built quickly in the 1950s and 60s to keep pace with that growth were graded and piped to the drainage standards of their era, which have not always kept up with the volume of runoff a built-out suburb now generates. Crest Hill sits inside Will County's stretch of the Des Plaines River watershed, where regional stormwater plans point to basement flooding and sewer backup as the common result when older subdivision drainage is overwhelmed.
Project Paths
Planning a Basement Waterproofing Project in a Postwar Crest Hill Subdivision
For a home built during Crest Hill's 1950s-60s subdivision boom, a useful scope should ask whether the original grading and storm drainage were designed for today's rainfall, not just whether the foundation wall itself has held up.