Jerseyville is a part of Southern Illinois, the Metro-East region and the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area.

In 1827, James Faulkner, a Pennsylvania native, and his family built a small framed structure that was named the "Little Red House," in the area that is now known as Jerseyville.

By 1834, the small settlement that grew up around Faulkner's home, then known as Hickory Grove by its residents, was surveyed and platted by two immigrants from New Jersey, John Lott and Edward M. Daly.

Lott and Daly's involvement marked the beginning of a proportionally large number of merchants, businessmen and settlers from New Jersey.

A meeting was called in that same year at the "Little Red House" to vote for a town name, so a post office could be established.

[5] After the American Civil War ended, and the construction of the Alton & Chicago Railroad was completed, Jerseyville saw a period of commercial, industrial and urban growth.

The majority of the commercial structures that are now located in the Downtown Historic District and Courthouse Square were built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Bayer (formerly Monsanto) owns and operates a facility located just south of the city, which in 1987, was the site of the world's very first biotechnology field trial – first with tomatoes and later that year with soybeans.

The facility was also home to the first triple stacked corn trial in 1998, which later became a part of one of Monsanto's top-selling products.

The facility was further expanded in 2008, and now consists of sixteen greenhouses and almost 300 acres (120 ha) of land for field testing.

Spring is the wettest season and produces severe weather ranging from tornadoes to snow or ice storms.

Fall is mild with lower humidity and can produce intermittent bouts of heavy rainfall with the first snow flurries usually forming in late November.

In recent years, average temperatures in Jerseyville have ranged from a low of 19.2 °F (−7.1 °C) in January to a high of 86.5 °F (30.3 °C) in July.

Churches that serve Jerseyville are listed here in alphabetical order: Two major highways run through the city.

This is a part of the completion of the entire US Highway 67 four-lane project in Illinois between Godfrey and the Quad Cities area.

Utility companies serving Jerseyville are Ameren (natural gas and electricity), Grafton Technologies and Frontier Communications (landline telephone service and internet), and Sparklight (cable television).