JOLIET

city, seat of Will county, northeastern Illinois, U.S., on the Des Plaines River. Settled in 1833 and named Juliet in honour of Juliet Campbell, daughter of a settler, it was renamed (1845) for Louis Jolliet, the French-Canadian explorer who visited the site in 1673. It was once known as the stone city for its limestone, used throughout the Middle West (e.g., in the Rock Island Arsenal, the Illinois State House, and the Lincoln Monument in Springfield). The opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal (1848), the arrival of the Rock Island Railroad (1852), and completion of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900 contributed to the city's expansion as an industrial and agricultural centre, and provided outlets for its farm products, manufactures (construction materials and equipment, machinery, wire, chemicals, paper), coal (strip mining), and oil-refinery products. Joliet Junior College was founded in 1901, and the College of St. Francis in 1920. Lewis University (1932) is in nearby Romeoville. The Joliet Correctional Center (a state prison) was built in the mid-19th century. The Illinois Crime Laboratory is nearby, and Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum security prison, is 5 miles (8 km) north. Inc. 1852. Pop. (1990) city, 76,836; Joliet PMSA, 389,650.