Did You Know?

Learn a little history about the Illinois Indians, an early North Shore Visitor, a mistranslation of the Des Plaines River, and the "backwards" running of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. Click on a suburb in the map below to discover more little-known facts!



ILLINOIS INDIANS

• “Illinois” is a Native American word meaning “the Men.” It expressed the manly pride of the Illinois Indians, and may have been a subtle insult to other tribes. Nonetheless, rival tribes annihilated the Illinois Indians before non-native settlers began arriving at the future site of Chicago in the early 1800s.

 NORTH SHORE VISITOR

• President Monroe was not impressed when he toured the future Chicago and North Shore area in 1785. He said the region would “perhaps never contain a sufficient number of inhabitants to entitle [it] to membership in the confederacy.”

 DES PLAINES RIVER

• The Des Plaines River was originally called the Aux Plaines River. When correctly pronounced according to its French origins, it sounded to settlers like an Irish word, “O’Plaine.” The name of the river was eventually changed, but to this day there is still an O’Plaine Road in Libertyville.

 CHICAGO AND NORTHWESTERN RAILROAD

• Have you ever noticed that the Chicago and Northwestern trains (now the Metra Union Pacific Line) seem to run on the “wrong” side of the road, like cars do in England? This is one of the only railroads in America that uses so-called left-hand running. Why? Some sources say that the line was built with British financing, which influenced the decision. Others say that since the line was originally a single track, it didn’t matter which side the station houses were on. The east side was arbitrarily chosen. When the second track was added, it was impractical to move the stations to the other side for in-bound morning commuters, so left-hand running was established instead.

 WAUKEGAN

• Waukegan was first called “Little Fort.”
• The local newspaper was the Little Fort Porcupine. Its editor opposed changing the city’s name to Waukegan.
• As late as 1878 livestock roamed the streets. In a June 8, 1878 editorial, the Little Fort Gazette’s editor wrote, “Waukegan is a beautiful city but… it will never be popular as a residence town until the cow at large is suppressed.”
• Waukegan may have been the first place where a sit-down strike was used, according to author Ruth Gregory.

 LAKE BLUFF

• Lake Bluff was first called the Dwyer Settlement for William and Mary Dwyer who settled in 1837 and operated a stage coach stop on the Green Bay Trail. It was later renamed Oak Hill.
• The name was changed to Rockland at the insistence of Henry Ostrander when the railroad came through in 1855. Ostrander agreed to donate land for the station on the condition that the town be renamed for his East Coast home.
• Finally the town was re-named Lake Bluff for the Methodist summer resort that was established there.

 LAKE FOREST

• The Schweppe Estate, which was a wedding gift from Marshall Field and Company president John G. Shedd to his daughter Laura, was famous for parties. At one legendary gathering, Lake Forest society feted the King and Queen of Sweden. Two orchestras entertained the guests and Ruth Page gave a private dance recital. Later, the mansion sat vacant for 40 years until new owners restored it.

 VERNON HILLS

• The Julia Roberts film, “My Best Friend’s Wedding” was filmed at the Cuneo Museum and Gardens.

 DEERFIELD

• Deerfield was once called Cadwell’s Corners. In a vote, the name Deerfield was chosen over “Erin,” which was favored by local Irish settlers.
• Waukegan Road was first called Corduroy Road, possibly because the logs used for paving gave it a ribbed texture like the fabric. It was later called Lincoln Avenue. The road was used by stagecoaches in the early days.
• The first stage coach service in the area was established 1836 on Milwaukee Post Road. It traveled through Wheeling, Half Day and Independence Grove (today called Libertyville). The “stagecoach” was a lumber wagon that also carried mail. The operator was William Lovejoy, who owned a tavern on the Des Plaines River.
• Deerfield became a national test case for open housing in 1959. A developer purchased land there for a subdivision called Floral Park to consist of 51 single-family homes, 10 or 12 of which would be sold at market rates to African Americans. When the plan became public, village inspectors halted construction on two model homes for alleged building code violations. Citizens formed groups supporting and opposing the development. The media descended on the bitterly divided community. Eventually, the Village condemned the Floral Park land and other adjacent property and created the park, which still stands along Wilmot Road north of Deerfield Road. Court cases dragged on for years, but the development was never built.

 HIGHLAND PARK

• Highland Park was the site of two earlier settlements. St. Johns stood where Fort Sheridan is today. Port Clinton was a small shipping and industrial city in the northern part of today’s Highland Park.
• Native Americans used parts of Highland Park’s ravines as chipping stations where they collected flint and fashioned it into arrowheads, according to author Philip Berger.
• Highland Park’s Braeside neighborhood supposedly was named because “the mists rising from the Skokie Valley reminded residents of Scottish landscape,” according to author Philip Berger.

 GLENCOE

• Glencoe was originally named Taylorsport by Anson H. Taylor, who established the first settlement there.
• Archibald Macleish, who was born in Glencoe in 1892, was a successful lawyer with a wife and kids when he decided to move his family to Paris and write poetry full time. It turned out to be a good choice. He went on to be a multiple Pulitzer Prize winner, Broadway playwright and librarian of congress.
• Other famous Glencoe residents, present and past: Gene Siskel, Harold Ramis, Bruce Dern, Lili Taylor, and advertising pioneer Leo Burnett.

 NORTHBROOK

• Northbrook was originally called Shermerville.
• The developer of Northbrook Court wasn’t originally planning to build a shopping center. His plan called for 2300 apartments in 12-story high rises. Northbrook opposed the plan, but courts ruled it had no jurisdiction since the land was unincorporated. Nonetheless, the developer feared a time-consuming court battle and offered Northbrook an alternative. If he built a shopping center and a smaller office and residential development, would Northbrook annex the property and give the go-ahead? Northbrook agreed. Then neighboring Highland Park wanted a piece of the action. First, Highland Park appealed to the state legislature for part of the mall’s tax revenues. But the bill failed. So Highland Park filed a lawsuit to overturn the annexation, but lost that battle too.
• The Catholic Society of the Divine Word built the famous mission in Techny just south of Northbrook in 1909. It trains missionaries to be sent all over the world.

 WINNETKA

• There was once a Potawatomi village on the site of the Indian Hill club. The site of the tenth tee was a high point used for lookouts.
• There was a Native American burial ground near the site of North Shore Country Day School, and a trading post at what is today the corner of Green Bay and Elm.
• A tavern that served travelers on the Green Bay Trail once stood where Lloyd Park is today. It was a log cabin, established in1836 by the Erastus Peterson family, who also lived there. The family settled in Winnetka after traveling from Vermont by horse and wagon.

 KENILWORTH

• One of Kenilworth’s chief selling points when it was first developed was that it had paved streets.
• Eugene Field, “The Children’s Poet,” is buried in the churchyard of the Church of the Holy Comforter in Kenilworth.

 GLENVIEW

• Glenview had no fewer than 5 names between 1853 and 1895. It was first called South Northfield, then North Branch, then Hutchings, after the donor of the land for the train station. But Sarah Hutchings decided that the ramshackle boxcar used for a train station wasn’t a fitting tribute to her late husband so the name was changed again to Oak Glen. Unfortunately, there was already an Oak Glen station on the train line. In 1895, Hugh Burnham suggested Glenview, because he had a view of the Oak Glen from his house.
• Burnham was a member of the Swedenborgian Church of New Jerusalem, which created a religious community there in 1894. He was a lawyer and nephew of Chicago city planner Daniel Burnham, and he created the ambitious plan for the settlement with church member Swain Nelson, designer of Chicago’s Lincoln Park. When Glenview was incorporated in 1899, Hugh Burnham was elected its first village president. The Swedenborgian church is now called the New Church, and many of the homes in the settlement are still occupied by church members.

 WILMETTE

• The word Wilmette is derived from the French name of the town’s first settler, Antoine Ouilmette.
• In 1987, Wilmette School District 39 “pioneered methods for accommodating a student with AIDS. Their sensitive treatment early in the AIDS crisis served as a model for schools across the country. Communication with parents and teachers relieved anxiety and allowed student to lead a relatively normal life until his death.”
• An example of how to grow an Indian Trail Tree is on display in the front yard of the Wilmette Historical society.

 SKOKIE

• Skokie was first called “Niles Center.”
• Skokie is a Native American word meaning “big swamp. During the Spring wet season in the village’s early days, you could row a boat to Evanston.
• Church Street in Skokie was the first paved street in Cook County outside of Chicago.

 EVANSTON

• Evanston was originally called “Ridgeville.”
• Northwestern University’s law school was the first to grant a degree to a woman, Ada Kepley, 1870.
• Notable NU alumni include: Ann-Margaret, Warren Beatty, Saul Bellow, Richard Benjamin, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Schwimmer, Chester Gould (creator of Dick Tracy), Charleton Heston, Cloris Leachman, Shelley Long, George McGovern, Tony Randall, Jerry Reinsdorf, Arthur Andersen, Adlai Stevenson II and Harold Washington.