Warrenville was founded in 1833 when Julius Warren and his family moved west from New York to seek a fresh start from a failing gristmill and distillery.

[4] The first major establishment, an inn and tavern, was built in 1838 by Julius Warren himself, as the family was skilled in timber and grain.

The town quickly blossomed with two mills and a plank road connecting it with Naperville and Winfield, on which Julius operated a stagecoach line.

[4] The 1970s and 1980s brought westward expansion from the city of Chicago, causing the small farming community's population to nearly double to 7,800.

In the mid-1970s two large subdivisions were developed in the west, next to Fermilab, a scientific research center where the world's largest superconducting particle accelerator ring was located.

[citation needed] Cantera was built from a TIF district on the former grounds 650-acre (2.6 km2) limestone quarry.

[7] Located on the district is a 30-screen movie theater, family entertainment center, several restaurants, a big box retail store, three hotels, three banks, a fitness club, numerous corporate offices, and two residential complexes.

Also, the headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 701 of DuPage County is in Cantera.

Navistar left Warrenville in 2011, and moved to neighboring Lisle due to tax incentives.

In 1986, voters approved another 15-cent tax rate increase to build and operate a 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) facility on Stafford Place.

In September 2003, a large addition and renovation project which tripled the size of the facility was completed.