In 1833, following the Black Hawk War, Charles Reed built a cabin along the west side of the Des Plaines River. Across the river in 1834, James B. Campbell, treasurer of the canal commissioners, laid out the village of "Juliet", which happened to be the name of one of his daughters. In 1845, local residents changed the community's name from "Juliet" to "Joliet", which is what the area had originally been called in honor of French-Canadian explorer Louis Jolliet.

The Joliet Prison was used for the opening scenes of The Blues Brothers (1980), in which blues vocalist and petty criminal "Joliet" Jake Blues (John Belushi) is released from prison and picked up by his blood brother Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) in his Bluesmobile. The prison was also featured in the television series Prison Break.

The soft-serve formula was first developed in 1938 by John Fremont "Grandpa" McCullough and his son Alex. Along with friend and loyal customer Sherb Noble, they went on to open the first Dairy Queen in 1940 in Joliet, Illinois. While this store has been out of operation since the 1950s, the building still stands at 501 N Chicago Street as a city-designated landmark.

The city has been dubbed the "City Of Champions" due to the numerous state and national titles won by the Joliet Township High School and grade school bands as well as by the Joliet American Legion Band over several decades.

William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago, was the major force behind the creation of America's first public junior college, arguing that the first two years of college are mostly preparation for the last two. However, Harper's ideas didn't gain much traction until 1901, when a friend and colleague, J. Stanley Brown, principal of Joliet High School, introduced college-level courses into his high-school curriculum. The result was the establishment of the first public Junior College in the United States.

Before Lionel Richie rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the co-lead singer of funk band the Commodores, he graduated from Joliet Township High School where he was also a star tennis player. Female rapper Da Brat and Jimmy Chamberlain of Smashing Pumpkins have also called Joliet home.

Cornelius Covenhoven Van Horne was active in getting the city its first charter, and because of this, he was elected Joliet's first mayor. When the city later built a new bridge, it was named the Van Horne Bridge.

The Joliet Slammers play in the independent Frontier League. They play their home games at DuPage Medical Group Field. They replaced the Joliet JackHammers of the Northern League after the franchise was crippled by numerous financial issues. The "Slammers" name refers to the famous prisons of Joliet and Will County.

The Rialto Square Theatre, also known as the "Jewel of Joliet", was a favorite haunt of Al Capone. It was designed in the Neo-Baroque style and has been called one of the world's 10 most beautiful theaters. It was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

The lowest temperature ever recorded in Joliet, Illinois was -26 °F which occurred on January 21, 1985. The highest temperature ever recorded was 104 °F which occurred on June 26, 1988.