From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Grand Ridge is a village in LaSalle County, Illinois, United States and was originally known as Harvest, Illinois. The population was 546 at the 2000 census. The village of Grand Ridge celebrates an annual "Ridge Round-Up", an event that holds a pork chop dinner-auction and an antique tractor show followed by a parade. It is ran by the village's Volunteer Fire Department, or basically every adult male in residence in the village.

The Downtown area of Grand Ridge consists of a bank, post office, hardware store, and three or more insurance agencies. The village of Grand Ridge also consists of a grain elevator, a police station, two churches, a funeral home, Grand Ridge Grade School and a public park. The village recently had its local gas station, The Minuteman, close due to lack of support from its local residents. The south end of Grand Ridge is home to the Mycogen Seed Company plant, and Jr's Bar and Grill, the village's only food vendor and bar legally registered. The village's unofficial residential avenue is Sylan Street and Porter Street. Recently Grand Ridge Township Board evicted Burlington Street from The Grand Ridge Streets and Roads Program, a program that decides which streets and roads need to be patroled and maintained, and only acknowledges Burlington Street as a "Frontage Lane" and not a street.

Contents 1 Grand Ridge Grade School 2 The Village Watch Program 3 Geography 4 Demographics 5 External links

Grand Ridge Grade School is located directly in front of Route 23 in Grand Ridge, Illinois. The grade school is governed by Principal Ted Sanders, and Superintendent David Mathis. The School's Mascot is a Mohawk. Grand Ridge runs a unique education program in which it seperates its students into an A Class and a B Class, in which students with lower than average math scores are placed in the A Class and students with average and above average math scores are placed in the B Class. Students are placed into the seperate clases due to their math scores when entering sixth grade and following into eigth grade. The social system at Grand Ridge Grade School is very close and family-like, so much so, that most of the teachers, school employees, and school board members are either related to someone within the school's infrastructure or has children attending the school.

Grand Ridge, Illinois is one of the view prototype towns, or villages, in which the new Illinois State Police Watch Program is being taken into effect for experimental purposes. The new watch program consists of three key processes that keep the village's families alert about any outsiders or strangers. The first part of the program is called The Watch. The Watch is the simplest and most important part of the three step process. The Watch clearly states that when an outside vehicle is seen entering the village, it is too be reported unto the town's main communication system, or in Grand Ridge's case its volunteer fire department's radio network. The second part in called The Broadcast. The Broadcast is a process that is only done solely by the communications operator of the network. The communications operator sends out a broadcast to all of the phones in village, and once answered will warn the citizen on the make and model of the foreign vehicle. The final part of the three step process is called The Intercept. The Intercept is just the simple aknowledgement that the citizen recieved the broadcast warning. It is simply carried out by pressing 0 (zero), on the keypad. Once the communications operator recieves an interception from a citizen he no longer broadcasts an alert to that particular home, and the process is complete.

The watch program is in its trial stage within Grand Ridge and has many flaws. For example, during The Broadcast process many citizens or children just press 0 (zero) on the keypad when a broadcast is recieved. This has been shown to create a false sense of alert awareness for the communications operator, who then sometimes decides to resend the broadcast with the thought that the reciever, the citizen, did not hear the alert, and mistakenly pressed the 0(zero) on the keypad by accident.

Grand Ridge is located at 41°14′4″N, 88°49′57″W (41.234532, -88.832551).^GR1

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 1.2 km² (0.5 mi²), all land.

As of the census^GR2 of 2000, there were 546 people, 201 households, and 151 families residing in the village. The population density was 448.5/km² (1,152.5/mi²). There were 212 housing units at an average density of 174.2/km² (447.5/mi²). The racial makeup of the village was 100.00% White. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.75% of the population.

There were 201 households out of which 35.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 68.2% were married couples living together, 4.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 24.4% were non-families. 21.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.72 and the average family size was 3.21.

In the village the population was spread out with 29.1% under the age of 18, 6.8% from 18 to 24, 26.2% from 25 to 44, 22.2% from 45 to 64, and 15.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 85.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.6 males.

The median income for a household in the village was $45,000, and the median income for a family was $52,000. Males had a median income of $38,125 versus $30,167 for females. The per capita income for the village was $18,287. About 2.6% of families and 5.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 3.3% of those under age 18 and 7.1% of those age 65 or over.

• Maps and aerial photos Coordinates: 41.234532° -88.832551°
  • Street map from Google Maps, or Yahoo! Maps, or Windows Live Local
  • Satellite image from Google Maps, Windows Live Local, WikiMapia
  • Topographic map from TopoZone
  • Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA

	Municipalities and Communities of LaSalle County, Illinois (County Seat: Ottawa)
Cities, Towns and Villages	Cedar Point | Dana | Earlville | Grand Ridge | Kangley | LaSalle | Leland | Leonore | Lostant | Marseilles | Mendota | Naplate | North Utica | Oglesby | Ottawa | Peru | Ransom | Rutland | Seneca | Sheridan | Streator | Tonica | Triumph | Troy Grove
Townships	Adams | Allen | Brookfield | Bruce | Dayton | Deer | Dimmick | Eagle | Earl | Eden | Fall River | Farm Ridge | Freedom | Grand Rapids | Groveland | Hope | LaSalle | Manlius | Mendota | Meriden | Miller | Mission | Northville | Ophir | Osage | Ottawa | Otter Creek | Peru | Richland | Rutland | Serena | South Ottawa | Troy Grove | Utica | Vermilion | Wallace | Waltham