Gridley TownshipIL
The town, settled in 1857, counts 1,845 residents.
Is Gridley Township a good place to live?
The best of Gridley Township’s subject grades is an A− for health; the weakest is a C− for walkability. Gridley Township’s age of the median resident is 49.1 years, above both the Illinois town median (40.7 years) and the median of U.S. towns (40.5 years). A typical home costs about $160K, 2 years of the Bloomington metro’s $80K median household income. Sweeney Woods Preserve, at 112 acres with 2.2 miles of trail, is the biggest park or preserve. Gridley Township has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade.
What makes Gridley Township stand out
Where Gridley Township beats most towns.
| School | Grades | Students |
|---|---|---|
| EPG Middle School | 5–8 | 345 |
Library visits per resident
97% of working residents leave Gridley Township for work
Where Gridley Township’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
How Gridley Township grades
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Illinois), ordered by how far Gridley Township is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Moving to Gridley Township: who provides what
Who provides power, water and the rest in Gridley 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.
The data
Ordered by what stands out in Gridley Township.
Residents of Gridley Township are healthier than 83% of U.S. towns
31% of Gridley Township adults feel lonely. The town does better than the Illinois average on 8 of 32 CDC measures and worse on 1. In Gridley Township, 19% of adults get no exercise outside work, and 15% say their health is fair or poor.
| Gridley Township | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sleep under 7 hours (CDC PLACES) | 32% | 35% | 36% |
| Get no exercise (CDC PLACES) | 19% | 23% | 25% |
| Fair or poor health (CDC PLACES) | 15% | 18% | 19% |
| Binge drink (CDC PLACES) | 19% | 18% | 16% |
| What stands out | Gridley Township | IL |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer adults facing food insecurity | 9.3% | 15.9% |
| Fewer uninsured adults | 5.9% | 9.9% |
| More adults who have had cancer | 9.8% | 7.6% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Gridley Township’s schools rank ahead of 73% of Illinois districts
Public schools: El Paso-Gridley CUSD 11. Its one school is below. Enrollment at Gridley Township’s public school: 345 students.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPG Middle SchoolLargest public middle schoolGrades 5–8 | Grades 5–8 | 345 | A− |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within IL on state tests and graduation
Most of Gridley Township’s workers head elsewhere: there are 0.4 jobs for each of them
Just 3% of Gridley Township’s working residents have a job in town. Jobs here fell by 93 from 2013 to 2023, to 386. Among residents locally, 4.6% live below the poverty line. The top destinations are Bloomington (33%), Normal (18%) and El Paso (4%).
| Gridley Township | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Below the poverty line | 4.6% | 8.4% | 9.6% |
| Median household income | $63,000 | $83,000 | $80,000 |
| Working residents who work in town | 3.3% | 8.3% | 8% |
| Average trip to work | 24 minutes | 26 minutes | 25 minutes |
Where working residents work
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Four seasons and pleasant summers: that is Gridley Township’s year
A winter brings about 20 inches of snow, with January nights at 16° and July afternoons at 85°.
Typical low → high °F
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Gridley Township is older than the Illinois average
People 65 and older are 24% of residents (17% statewide); adults 18 to 34 are 19% of residents (23% statewide). 30% of adults 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or more, vs 38% across Illinois. For residents in Gridley Township, the share who are under 18 is 21%.
| Gridley Township | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aged 65 or older | 24% | 19% | 18% |
| Under 18 | 21% | 22% | 22% |
Ages · share of residents
Education · adults 25 and older
Women and men · all residents
49% women, 51% men
That’s an even split within the survey’s margin of ±2 points. Across Illinois, 50.6% of residents are women.
| Gridley Township | IL | U.S. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 10 | 9.7% | 11.5% | 11.6% |
| 10 to 17 | 11.4% | 10.4% | 10.3% |
| 18 to 24 | 9.5% | 9.1% | 9.1% |
| 25 to 34 | 9.2% | 13.6% | 13.7% |
| 35 to 44 | 7.7% | 13.3% | 13.2% |
| 45 to 54 | 9.7% | 12.4% | 12.2% |
| 55 to 64 | 18.7% | 12.8% | 12.7% |
| 65 to 74 | 17.6% | 10% | 10.2% |
| 75 and older | 6.5% | 7% | 7% |
| No diploma | 3.3% | 9.5% | 10.4% |
| High school | 34.6% | 25.1% | 26% |
| Some college | 18.1% | 19.2% | 19.1% |
| Associate’s | 14.5% | 8.3% | 8.8% |
| Bachelor’s | 24.3% | 22.6% | 21.6% |
| Graduate | 5.3% | 15.3% | 14.1% |
U.S. Census Bureau · ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates · in a town of 1,800, single groups can be off by several points
Gridley Township faces a high natural-hazard risk, led by inland flooding
Gridley Township’s risk rating from FEMA stands at 64 of 100. Federal disaster aid has reached households in Gridley Township once, in 2011. Expected losses in Gridley Township break down as 47% from inland flooding and 25% from cold waves.
FEMA disaster declarations and aid · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
Conservation land takes up 0.7% of Gridley Township
Across 3 parks and preserves: 5.2 miles of trail. The trail network density in Gridley Township is 0.1 miles per square mile.
| Gridley Township | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conserved land | 0.7% | 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. Sweeney Woods Preserve | 2.2 mi | 112 |
| 2. Westview Park | 0.5 mi | 10 |
| 3. Merwin Savannah Nature Preserve | 0.3 mi | 61 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Miller Park Zoo and 7 more within 40 miles
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Gridley Township. Close and well known come first.
15 mi GardenFell Arboretum16 mi MuseumPrairie Aviation Museum
25 mi Theme parkSpider Hill
25 mi MuseumAdlai E. Stevenson I HousePhoto credits
Fell Arboretum: Willjay, CC BY 3.0 · Spider Hill: NatFee, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Adlai E. Stevenson I House: Nyttend, Public domain
Everything we know about Gridley Township
Colleges nearby
1 within 15 miles of the center of Gridley Township
About 4 of every 100 Gridley Township residents are enrolled in college, against 6 across Illinois.
About Gridley Township
Village in Illinois, United States
Gridley is a village in McLean County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,456 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Bloomington–Normal Metropolitan Statistical Area. The village of Gridley was founded in 1869 and named after General Asahel Gridley, a noted early Republican, land investor, political backer and client of Abraham Lincoln, and a descendant of a Colonel Gridley who served at the Battle of Lexington.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
- Established
- 1869
- Area
- 1.2 sq mi
- Elevation
- 754 ft
- ZIP code
- 61744
Gridley Township’s neighbors
4 towns share a border with Gridley Township.
| Town | IL rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gridley Township | — | — | B+ | — | B+ | A− |
| El Paso Township | #244 | A− | B+ | — | B+ | B− |
| Chenoa Township | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Waldo Township | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Hudson Township | — | — | A− | — | B+ | A |
Gridley Township and Hudson Township have fewer than 2,500 residents, so they get subject grades but no overall grade. Gridley Township, El Paso Township and Hudson Township report no FBI crime data of their own. Chenoa Township and Waldo Township aren’t graded (fewer than 1,000 residents, or not enough data). Compare Gridley Township with a neighbor →
Questions about Gridley Township
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Is Gridley Township, IL expensive?
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+.