Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
El Paso Township gives you more for your money than most places: a typical home costs about $168K, 2.3 years of the Peoria metro’s $72K median household income. It grades A− overall, 244th of 767 graded towns in Illinois. 19% of working residents work locally in El Paso Township, above both the Illinois town median (8.3%) and the median of U.S. towns (8%). The biggest park or preserve is South Pointe Park, at 46 acres.
Where El Paso Township beats most towns.
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Illinois), ordered by how far El Paso Township is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Census counts: 890 in 1860, 2,756 in 2020. The archive holds 18 old photos and papers going back to 1869 and 4 maps from 1927 on.
Who provides power, water and the rest in El Paso Township, and how to reach them.
EPA SDWIS (Oct 9, 2026) · HIFLD + EIA-861 2025 · Census 2020 ZCTAs · NCES 2024–25 · registration: vote.gov, updated Sep 12, 2025.
Ordered by what stands out in El Paso Township.
Its public schools are run by El Paso-Gridley CUSD 11. Two of its 3 schools are below, each with why it’s listed. The largest public high school is El Paso-Gridley High School, with 364 students.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jefferson Park SchoolLargest public elementary schoolGrades PK–2 | Grades PK–2 | 261 | – |
| El Paso-Gridley High SchoolLargest public high schoolGrades 9–12 | Grades 9–12 | 364 | B+ |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within IL on state tests and graduation
El Paso Township has chilly winters and warm summers. July afternoons reach 85°, January nights drop to 16° and about 20 inches of snow falls in a winter.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
El Paso Township has about as many jobs (1,470) as working residents, but only 292 people both live and work here.
The top destinations are Bloomington (22%), El Paso (17%) and Normal (10%).
| El Paso Township | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Work from home | 8.4% | 11% | 11% |
| Average trip to work | 25 minutes | 26 minutes | 25 minutes |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Expected storm and flood damage is lower than in 64% of U.S. communities. One flood insurance claim has been paid in El Paso Township since 1979.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
2.2 miles of trail in 4 parks and preserves. El Paso Township’s trail density is 0.1 miles per square mile.
| El Paso Township | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conserved land | 0.4% | 3.7% | 4.3% |
| Miles of trail per square mile | 0.1 miles per square mile | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Jefferson Park | 0.3 mi | 3 |
| 2. South Pointe Park | 0.1 mi | 46 |
| 3. Franklin Park | — | 2 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
El Paso Township beats the Illinois average on 2 of 32 CDC measures and trails it on 7. 40% of El Paso Township adults have obesity.
| El Paso Township | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 40% | 37% | 35% |
| Sleep under 7 hours (CDC PLACES) | 34% | 35% | 36% |
| Smoke cigarettes (CDC PLACES) | 15% | 13% | 14% |
| Binge drink (CDC PLACES) | 18% | 18% | 16% |
| What stands out | El Paso Township | IL |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer uninsured adults | 7.3% | 9.9% |
| Fewer adults facing housing insecurity | 10.7% | 13.2% |
| More older adults who have lost all their teeth | 16.3% | 10.3% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around El Paso Township. Close and well known come first.
38 mi Zoo & aquariumWildlife Prairie Park29 mi Zoo & aquariumPeoria Zoo
13 mi GardenFell Arboretum16 mi MuseumPrairie Aviation Museum
19 mi Theme parkSpider HillWildlife Prairie Park: Katherine Johnson, CC BY 2.0 · Fell Arboretum: Willjay, CC BY 3.0 · Spider Hill: NatFee, CC BY-SA 4.0
4 within 15 miles of the center of El Paso Township
About 4 of every 100 El Paso Township residents are enrolled in college, against 6 across Illinois.
City in Illinois, United States
El Paso (Spanish for 'The Step') is a city in Woodford and McLean counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. The population was 2,756 at the 2020 census. The Woodford County portion of El Paso is part of the Peoria metropolitan area. El Paso is a city in central Illinois. After the construction of Interstate 39, which replaced the former alignment of U.S. Highway 51 through the area, the city’s development patterns shifted toward highway-oriented transportation infrastructure. Interstate 39 in Illinois was completed on October 31, 1992, with the final segment between Kappa and Illinois Route 116 near El Paso. The city's strategic location at the intersection of the Illinois Central Railroad an…
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
4 towns share a border with El Paso Township.
| Town | IL rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| El Paso Township | #244 | A− | B+ | — | B+ | B− |
| Gridley Township | — | — | B+ | — | B+ | A− |
| Palestine Township | — | — | C− | — | A− | B− |
| Hudson Township | — | — | A− | — | B+ | A |
| Kansas Township | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Gridley Township, Palestine Township and Hudson Township have fewer than 2,500 residents, so they get subject grades but no overall grade. El Paso Township, Gridley Township, Palestine Township and Hudson Township report no FBI crime data of their own. Kansas Township isn’t graded (fewer than 1,000 residents, or not enough data). Compare El Paso Township with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
By most measures, yes. El Paso Township grades A− overall, better than 79% of U.S. towns and #244 of 767 in Illinois. It grades B− for health and B+ for schools.
Not for the area. Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades B+.
