Chester is a city in and the county seat of Randolph County, Illinois, United States, on a bluff above the Mississippi River. The population was 6,814 at the 2020 census. It lies 61 miles (98 km) south of St. Louis, Missouri.

Samuel Smith is said to be the town’s founder because he built the first home in Chester, established a ferry system, and began the construction of a mill in 1829. The town was named after Chester, England, the city from where his wife Jane Smith was from. The first event in Chester was a general collection that opened in 1830 along when a castor oil press acknowledged by R. B. Servant, who furnished farmers with seed and growing methods to later buy the beans they produced for oil extraction. This was a well-to-do business until the petroleum industry made it obsolete.
The first wedding in the town of Chester was held upon February 4, 1834. Content Walker, the bride and Amzi Andrews, the groom held their wedding in a 16 feet square log cabin.

The H.C. Cole Milling Company was founded by Nathan Cole in 1839. It started out as a little sawmill similar to a corn-grinding add-on which encouraged the townspeople to reforest grains, and in a curt time the first Cole flour mill was built. The mill yet exists in Chester but it is now operated by Ardent Mills. Nathan Cole next brought the first electric generator to Chester and used the surplus of capability from the mill to accomplishment street lights. This was a modern ease of access that was not even genial in Chicago at that point. The generator is now on display at the Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

In 1916, Messrs. Bronson, Albert Gilster, Frank Wolff and John Herschbach developed the site for the International Shoe Company in the center of town where the Gilster Mary Lee Corp. is today. In 1922, a second building was built, and the company had on pinnacle of 1000 employees and was producing thousands of pairs of children’s shoes. During World War Two, the factory operated primarily by women produced military/combat boots for the troops in service. In 1953, payroll reached over $2,000,000. The factory was closed by the company in the in front 1960s after 45 years of operation.