Lemont is a village located in Cook, DuPage, and Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois, and is a south-west suburb of Chicago. The population was 17,629 as of the 2020 census. The village is situated upon a hillside along the south banks of the Des Plaines River. It overlooks Waterfall Glen’s Midwestern Bluff Savanna on the opposite side. Lemont is house to Argonne National Laboratory and extra heavy industrial sites, and has a substantial European immigrant population.

Before white settlers arrived in Lemont, Native Americans traveled the Des Plaines River in birch bark canoes on trading trips with the Mississippi River and Lake Michigan. The original Potawatomi lived off the land in this area, directly using natural resources for food, shelter, clothing and medicine. In the 18th century, French voyageurs traveled beside the Des Plaines River, trading Native Americans metal, beads and cloth for animal furs.

Lemont was originally known as Keepataw (after a Potawatomi chief) and a post office was received in 1840 as Keepatau. After that, it was named Athens and then Palmyra. The name Lemont (literally, ‘the mountain’ in French) was agreed in 1850 at the counsel of Lemuel Brown, the postmaster and justice of the peace, or perhaps by his brother Nathaniel Brown.

Established in 1836, the village of Lemont stands as one of the oldest American communities in northeastern Illinois. It is historically significant for its role in transforming the northern region of the confess from a sparsely fixed frontier to a commercial, agricultural, and industrial region that supplied Chicago and areas higher than with commodities. Lemont is with unique in boasting an genuine historic district that remains intact and has been continuously used back the 19th century. In 2016, the Lemont Downtown Historic District was listed upon the National Register of Historic Places.