Use of the land remained relatively static until the 1960s, when part of it was purchased for a residential community and golf course; the development was the first use of the name "Vernon Hills."

On June 16, 1958, the village officially incorporated with 123 residents and 125 houses in a single subdivision built by Quinn Hogan and Barney Loeb.

[3] It saw steady but slow growth until the annexing of a plot of land near the corner of IL-60 and IL-21 in 1971, which led to the building of 1,200,000-square-foot (110,000 m2) Hawthorn Center.

This included land that would become the Corporate Woods business park and Centennial Crossing residential development (1986), a 1,200-acre (4.9 km2) section of Hawthorne-Mellody Farms (1988), and part of the village of Half Day (1994).

"[11] Recently, Vernon Hills developed a former 52 acre soybean field into a $200 million shopping center known as Mellody Farm, whose tenants are a host of restaurant and retail businesses.

[14][15] According to the Village's 2021 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report,[16] the top employers in the city are: Vernon Hills is one of six communities which, in part, comprise the Cook Memorial Public Library District.

This 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2) building is located across the street from the Vernon Hills Elementary and Grade School Campus at 701 N Aspen Drive.

The library also has an interactive children's department, a high-tech teen area, a state-of-the-art computer lab, small group study spaces and community meeting rooms.

In 2000, the village acquired land that had belonged at different times to the U.S. Army as a Nike missile base, the U.S. Navy as a naval training center, and the Curtiss Candy Company; it was converted to what is now the 184-acre (0.74 km2) Vernon Hills Athletic Complex (VHAC).

Students living in the southwest corner of Vernon Hills attend Long Grove grade schools (Country Meadows & Woodlawn).

A small area in the southwest corner of the village is zoned to attend the high school in Mundelein, IL.