Editing Hodgkins, Illinois (section)

==McCook-Hodgkins Enterprise Zone==
In the 1950s and 1960s, Hodgkins began to attract motor freight terminals.<ref name=centennial/> The village's location relative to expressways and the availability of high, flat, and dry land made it a natural distribution and transfer point between Chicago and the rest of the nation. Hodgkins grew substantially during these two decades; however, by the late 1970s, the motor freight industry began to decline.<ref name=centennial/>

In 1985, Hodgkins joined with the village of [[McCook, Illinois|McCook]] to create the McCook-Hodgkins Enterprise Zone. The next year saw the creation of a Tax Increment Finance (TIF) District within the Enterprise Zone. Both of these tools allowed the village to offer incentives to new businesses desiring to locate there. As a result of these programs, commercial business began to replace motor freight as Hodgkins' mechanism of growth.<ref name=centennial/> Developers built a major local shopping center, The Quarry Mall, on land vacated by the declining motor freight companies in 1992. Several auto dealerships, restaurants, a movie theater and an [[off-track betting]] establishment were also attracted to the development.