Rural Historic Structural Survey - Will County Land Use

Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc.
The first table shown below summarizes the number of farms in Will County as listed in the 1930 census;
the second table shows the trend towards larger farms between 1900 and 1930: 73
Township
Farms within Each Township, 1 April 1930
Total Number
of Farms
Township
Total Number
of Farms
Channahon 98 Monee 129
Crete 150 New Lenox 140
Custer 70 Peotone 133
Du Page 128 Plainfield 144
Florence 121 Reed 46
Frankfort 154 Troy 107
Green Garden 161 Washington 196
Homer 137 Wesley 78
Jackson 159 Wheatland 133
Joliet 88 Will 141
Lockport 111 Wilmington 96
Manhattan 123 Wilton 126
Size of Farms – 1900 and 1930
Size of Farms 1900 Percent of
Total
1930 Percent of
Total
Under 3 acres 35 1% 7 0.2%
3 to 9 acres 110 3.1% 54 1.8%
10 to 19 acres 115 3.2% 79 2.6%
20 to 49 acres 232 6.5% 158 5.3%
50 to 99 acres 785 21.9% 468 15.9%
100 to 174 acres 1,373 38.3% 1,273 42.9%
175 to 259 acres 623 17.4% 633 21.4%
260 to 499 acres 292 8.1% 276 9.3%
500 to 999 acres 16 0.4% 20 0.5%
1,000 to 4,999 acres 3 0.08% 1 0.03%
The coming of the Great Depression deepened the crisis further. Agricultural production in Illinois
collapsed from almost $6.25 billion in 1929 to $2.5 billion in 1933. As unemployment in industrial
centers soared, some people fled to rural communities, putting additional pressure on rural areas as most
did not have access to welfare relief. 74 Within days of the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt, legislation
was formulated that would later pass Congress as the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The legislation was
intended to regulate production in order to raise prices to an acceptable level. In 1934, 15,734,600 acres
of land were in production, for a total crop value of $218,569,000 nationally, which grew to 17,692,100
acres and a crop value of $273,931,000 the following year. 75 The numerous adjustment programs initiated
73 Twelfth Census of the United States: 1900 – Census of Agriculture (Washington, D.C.: 1901); Fifteenth Census of
the United States: 1930 – Agriculture, Volume II: Part I – The Northern States, Reports by States, with Statistics for
Counties and a Summary for the United States, (Washington, D.C.: 1931).
74 Morrison, Prairie State, A History, 108.
75 United States Department of Agriculture, Yearbook of Agriculture (1936), 1146.
Will County Rural Historic Structural Survey
Du Page Township Chapter I – 29