Thyfault and Len Bessette. LeVasseur died, aged 80, four years later. LeTourneau also became mayor and sheriff of Kankakee as well as state senator; his home (begun in 1837 and with renovations completed in 1866) eventually became headquarters of the local historical society, which is also restoring the garden and nearby arboretum. After enrollment declines in the early 20th century, in 1940, the Catholic institutions were bought out by what became Olivet Nazarene University, since the Protestant school in nearby Vermillion County had burned down the previous year. In 1999, the town was the site of a major train wreck, the Bourbonnais train accident. Bourbonnais was home of the summertime training camp of the Chicago Bears professional football team from 2002 to 2019. In 2020, the team relocated training camp to their headquarters at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, Illinois after major renovations of the building complex. Geography According to the 2010 census, Bourbonnais has a total area of , all land. Pronunciation The original French pronunciation of Bourbonnais came to be Anglicized over time to . In 1974, a state representative from Bourbonnais introduced a resolution "correcting" the pronunciation of the town's name to , closer to the French. In 1976, for the U.S. Bicentennial, the Village Board passed a resolution making "ber-buh-NAY" the official pronunciation. Demographics As of the 2010 United States Census, there were 18,854 people, 6,387 households in the village. The population density was 1,950.6/sqmi. The racial makeup of the village was 75.3% White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, 9.5% African American, 0.0% Native American, 2.3% Asian, 0.0% Pacific Islander, and 5.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 8.0% of the population. The village population contained 19% under the age of 18 and 14.4% who were 65 years of age or older. There is a slightly higher percent of female persons at 52.9%. The median income for a household in the village was $76,920. The per capita income for the village was $30,972. About 7.1% of the population were below the poverty line. Education Bourbonnais shares a high school, Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School (BBCHS), with Bradley, Illinois. The high school's mascot is the "Boilermaker". The Kankakee Area Career Center (KACC) serves local area high school students as a vocational and technical education institution. Bourbonnais is served by three private high schools: Bishop McNamara Catholic School (Catholic), Grace Christian Academy (non-denominational),