Travel Guide Joliet

Joliet is located about 40 miles southwest of downtown Chicago on the Desplaines River. Founded in 1833, it was originally named Juliet by James B. Campbell, a settler from Ottawa and an official in the Commissioners' Office of the Illinois and Michigan Canal (which would eventually connect the Great Lakes to the Mississippi via the Illinois River), after his daughter. The town was renamed in 1845 in memory of Louis Jolliet, the French-Canadian explorer who visited the site in 1673 with Father Jacques Marquette.Joliet was long known as "Stone City" for its limestone used throughout the Midwest. The opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal (1848), the arrival of the Rock Island Railroad (1852), and the completion of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (1900) helped expand the city as an industrial and agricultural center. By the early 1980s, the decline of industry had greatly affected the city.Today, Joliet is the first notable stop on Route 66 out of Chicago. It is for many the town of The Blues Brothers, the 1980 film by John Landis. Life-size figures of the two brothers greet you with song and dance at the entrance to town. Joliet is also home to the Joliet Correctional Center and the famous Ruby Bridge, which opens when the two brothers want to cross the Desplaines River. Joliet also has a beautiful theater (the Rialto) and the Joliet Area Historical Museum, which also serves as a Visitor Center.