Bureau County, Illinois

Bureau County is a county in Illinois, United States, along the Illinois River in the north-central part of the state. It had a population of 33,244 at the 2020 census and covers 874 square miles (2,260 km2), of which 869 square miles are land, centred near 41°25′N 89°32′W.

Princeton is the county seat, and its postal code is 61356. The county has 2 cities, 19 villages and several unincorporated communities spread across 25 townships. Bureau County lies in the Central time zone.

Towns & Villages in Bureau County

Bureau County has 21 incorporated places — Princeton and Spring Valley are cities, the rest are villages — plus a handful of unincorporated hamlets that never grew past a rail siding, a grain elevator or a coal-mining camp. The table below carries every place named on the county’s own list; CDP marks a Census-Designated Place, and Unincorp. marks a community with no municipal government.

The old county list also carried entries for Burnett, Churchill, Greenoak, Hegeler, Hicks Corners, Langley, Limerick, Lone Tree Corners, Love, Normandy, Ottville, Providence, Thomas, Webster Park and Whitefield. These read as historical rail sidings, farm-crossroads names or platted-but-never-built subdivisions with no verifiable present-day population, ZIP or township, so they are omitted here rather than published unverified. The old list’s separate “Bureau” and “Bureau Junction village” entries are one place, the village of Bureau Junction; “Depue” was a misspelling of De Pue, listed only once here.

Townships

Bureau County is divided into 25 civil townships. Township-level 2020 population figures were not independently verifiable and are omitted rather than guessed; the table below lists the townships this profile can confirm by name, alongside their main incorporated settlement where the township and place share a name.

ZIP Codes

• 61356 — Princeton
• 61362 — Spring Valley
• 61376 — Walnut
• 61322 — De Pue
• 61361 — Sheffield
• 61329 — Ladd
• 61368 — Tiskilwa
• 61379 — Wyanet
• 61330 — La Moille
• 61349 — Ohio
• 61345 — Neponset
• 61320 — Dalzell
• 61314 — Buda
• 61337 — Malden
• 61312 — Arlington
• 61344 — Mineral
• 61374 — Van Orin (also serves nearby farm addresses)
• 61346 — New Bedford
• 61328 — Kasbeer

Bureau Junction, Cherry, Dover, Hollowayville, Manlius and Seatonville have no standard-delivery ZIP of their own and are served by a neighbouring post-office town’s code.

Geography

Bureau County sits on the north bank of the Illinois River, where the rolling farmland of the Grand Prairie meets bluffs along Big Bureau Creek and the river valley. The Hennepin Canal Parkway State Park runs through the northern part of the county, following the old Illinois and Mississippi Canal, and the county is part of the Ottawa, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area. Water covers about half of one percent of the county’s total area.

Bureau County borders Whiteside County to the northwest, Lee County to the north (Lee County, Illinois), LaSalle County to the east, Putnam County to the southeast, Marshall County to the south, Stark County to the southwest, and Henry County to the west.

Demographics

Bureau County had 33,244 residents at the 2020 census. Princeton and Spring Valley are its two largest communities, together home to roughly 40 percent of the county’s population. Median household income runs below the Illinois median of $80,306, reflecting the county’s mix of farming, small manufacturing and coal-legacy river towns. Population density is about 38 people per square mile, well below the statewide average.

Economy & Local Life

Corn and soybean farming dominates the countryside outside the river towns. Spring Valley and De Pue carry the legacy of 19th- and 20th-century coal mining and zinc smelting along the Illinois River; Princeton anchors retail, healthcare and county government for the rest of the county, and hosts Illinois Valley Community College’s Princeton extension programs. The Hennepin Canal Parkway draws hikers, cyclists and boaters along its towpath each summer, and Princeton’s annual Homestead Festival is the county’s best-known community event.

History

Bureau County was organized in 1837, carved out of Putnam County. It takes its name from Michel and Pierre Bureau, French-Canadian traders who ran a post near Big Bureau Creek and the Illinois River from the late 1770s into the 1780s, well before Illinois statehood. Coal mining shaped Spring Valley and De Pue through the late 1800s and early 1900s, drawing waves of Italian, Polish and Lithuanian immigrant miners; De Pue later became a zinc-smelting town, a legacy that left it on the federal Superfund cleanup list decades later.

Getting There

Interstate 80 and Interstate 180 cross the county, along with U.S. Routes 6 and 34 and Illinois Routes 26, 29, 40, 89 and 92.

• Peru/LaSalle — 15 miles east
• Rock Falls — 30 miles northwest
• Kewanee — 20 miles southwest
• Rockford — 65 miles north

The nearest commercial airport is Chicago’s Midway International Airport, roughly 100 miles to the northeast.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Bureau County?
It is in north-central Illinois, along the Illinois River, about 100 miles southwest of Chicago.

What is the population of Bureau County?
33,244 people, at the 2020 census.

How big is Bureau County?
874 square miles (2,260 km2), including 4.5 square miles of water.

What is the county seat of Bureau County?
Princeton.

How many towns and villages are in Bureau County?
21 incorporated places — 2 cities and 19 villages — plus several unincorporated communities, across 25 townships.

What ZIP codes are in Bureau County?
Codes range from 61312 (Arlington) to 61379 (Wyanet); Princeton’s is 61356 and Spring Valley’s is 61362.

Why is it called Bureau County?
For Michel and Pierre Bureau, French-Canadian traders active near Big Bureau Creek in the late 1700s.

More counties in this state: Towns and villages in Illinois.