A Turtle Village With Two Active Stations
The first non-Native settlers reached the Hickory Creek area in the early 1830s. The McGovney and Van Horne families farmed the prairie. A post office was established in 1838. The community was small — a few hundred people scattered across the township — when the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad reached the area in late 1852. That changed everything.
The man who platted the village along the new tracks was Allen Denny — a War of 1812 veteran who'd migrated from New York, owned a substantial parcel of land alongside the railroad right-of-way, and paid the surveyor to lay out 37 lots running parallel to the new track. He named the village Mokena, a nod to Indigenous heritage — most likely the Potawatomi word mkenak, meaning "snapping turtle." (Some local accounts claim the name refers to a Potawatomi chief or princess; the linguistic evidence points to the turtle.)
For decades after, Front Street was the only Rock Island stop between Blue Island and Joliet — a status that made Mokena a real commercial center despite its small size. By the late 1870s, with about 500 residents, the village supported five general stores, two hardware stores, two drug stores, two blacksmith shops, two wagon shops, three hotels, and seven beer saloons. German and Swiss Lutheran immigrants arrived through the 1840s and 1850s and founded the Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1850. St. John's German Evangelical Church preserved German-language services into the 20th century.
The village formally incorporated on June 16, 1880 by a vote of 50-22, electing Ozias McGovney as the first village president — with just 522 residents at the time. Through most of the 1900s Mokena stayed small. Population didn't pass 3,000 until the late 1970s. Then, after I-80 opened along the village's northern border, suburban growth accelerated: 6,128 residents by 1990, 14,583 by 2000, and roughly 20,000 today. The 1993 opening of Hickory Creek Station brought a second commuter rail option, this time built specifically for I-80 corridor commuters rather than the historic downtown.
Modern Mokena is an established, stable bedroom community. Median household income is $129,017. Owner-occupancy is approximately 90%. About 45% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and 98% are high-school graduates. The two Metra stations combine for over 1,800 daily commuter trips — substantial volume for a village under 20,000. Niche-style local rankings consistently place Mokena among the top family-friendly Will County communities. The local economy is diverse: health care and social assistance is the single largest employer, followed by education, retail, construction, and manufacturing — meaning corporate professionals, teachers, skilled tradespeople, and small-business owners all share the same village limits.
Lincoln Limo Inc serves Mokena because Mokena's mix of residents matches the kind of service we want to provide. A village named for the turtle, anchored by a 173-year-old depot, with both white-collar commuters and skilled-trades families — this is a community that pays attention to value and consistency. Reservation-based black car service for residents who want a vehicle that arrives when promised, charges what was quoted, and treats every booking as if the next twenty depend on it. Same driver, same Escalade ESV, every booking, year after year.