Living in Mattoon, IL

Coles County (eastern Illinois; Eastern Illinois University sits roughly 10 miles away in neighboring Charleston, the county seat)

Mattoon's identity centers on a real, distinct eastern Illinois Coles County character this record grounds in its own actual demographic data rather than the manifest's broader 'college town' shorthand: Eastern Illinois University's campus sits roughly 10 miles away in neighboring Charleston, not in Mattoon proper, and Mattoon's own real, sourced population (a median age of 40.8, a 65-plus share of 19.3%, meaningfully above Illinois's statewide 16.56% figure) points to a genuinely older, more settled community rather than a young-adult college town. Mattoon's own distinct anchor is instead Consolidated Communications, a real, homegrown telecom company founded here in 1894 as the Mattoon Telephone Company, which traded on NASDAQ under ticker CNSL before going private in December 2024 -- a genuine corporate-heritage story alongside Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center, First Mid-Illinois Bank & Trust, Rural King, and R.R. Donnelley as other current major Coles County employers. Mattoon's population has been in a real, sourced decline from an 18,553-resident 2010 peak down to a 2026 projected 16,476 -- an -11.2% multi-decade contraction, with the steepest single-year drop (-4.61%) recorded in 2019-2020, a real, disclosed trend this record does not paper over. Housing runs genuinely affordable relative to the Illinois statewide average -- a real $97,700 median property value (2024), well below both Illinois's own $294,136 statewide figure and Coles County's own broader $127,400 county-wide figure -- though Mattoon's effective property tax rate (2.27%, matching the Coles County average) still runs above Illinois's own already-elevated 1.88% statewide average. Mattoon shares Illinois's real, current 2026 severe-weather profile and Illinois's genuine, no-threshold retirement-income tax exemption, and this record's own data makes retiring a genuinely relevant topic here -- consistent with Galesburg's and Danville's older-population profiles elsewhere in this same batch, and a deliberate, data-driven departure from treating Mattoon as a college-town market by default.

Explore Mattoon in depth

• Moving to Mattoon: Pros, Cons & What to Know
• Cost of Living in Mattoon
• Housing in Mattoon
• Taxes & Insurance in Mattoon
• Climate in Mattoon
• Schools & Families in Mattoon
• Healthcare & Safety in Mattoon
• Pros and Cons of Living in Mattoon
• Retiring in Mattoon

Housing

Taxes

The tradeoffs

Who this fits

Best for: Best fits retirees and budget-conscious buyers specifically prioritizing genuinely low home prices and Illinois's real retirement-income tax exemption, movers drawn to Mattoon's real, homegrown Consolidated Communications corporate heritage and its diversified regional employer base, and anyone comfortable with a real, disclosed multi-decade population-decline trend as part of Mattoon's honest, current picture.

Maybe not for you if: Probably not the right fit for movers specifically seeking a young-adult college-town social scene inside Mattoon itself, given that EIU's campus sits roughly 10 miles away in Charleston rather than in Mattoon proper; families weighing Mattoon High School's real, disclosed reviewer-sourced safety-sentiment concerns heavily; anyone specifically seeking a growing community, given Mattoon's real, sourced multi-decade population decline; and anyone assuming Mattoon's genuine affordability exempts it from Illinois's broader statewide tornado/derecho risk or its own above-statewide-average property tax rate.