Golf in Pekin

Pekin is Tazewell County's largest city, an Illinois River industrial community with a long history in corn processing and manufacturing that has shaped its working-class identity. The city occupies the flat ground above the river's floodplain on the east bank, across from East Peoria, and its multiple golf facilities — Lick Creek, Parkview, Pekin Country Club, and Sunset Hills — reflect a community large enough to sustain varied recreational options at different price points. Pekin's golf landscape divides between private club and fee-based recreational golf, mirroring the economic range of a city whose industrial employment base has contracted but whose civic infrastructure remains substantial. The Illinois River corridor west of the city and the farmland to the east bookend an urban footprint that supports more amenities than Pekin's size might suggest.