by Vanessa Carlson | Feb 1, 2023 | Places
Considered to be the oldest community in Will County, Plainfield started out as Walker’s Grove, a small settlement established by James Walker and his family in 1828. Walker built a cabin, a sawmill, and a gristmill at the site of an old Potawatomi village on the Du...
by Vanessa Carlson | Feb 1, 2023 | Places
Oak Park, originally part of Cicero became its own municipality in 1902. The first settlers in what became the village of Oak Park were Joseph and Berry Kettlestrings of Yorkshire, England, who moved here in 1837. The Kettlestrings, whose property bordered the Frink...
by Vanessa Carlson | Feb 1, 2023 | Places
Sometime in the 1830’s brothers Jesse and Warren Wheaton arrived in Illinois from Connecticut and purchased about 1,000 acres of the land that now encompasses downtown Wheaton. In 1849 the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad build a station on land donated by...
by Vanessa Carlson | Jan 30, 2023 | Places
In 1834 new jersey born brothers Joseph and Sammuel Mccarty spotted a bend in the swift running Fox River and feeling it was an ideal location for a sawmill, they purchased land on both sides of the river. After building a mill on the east side, they sold their land...
by Vanessa Carlson | Jan 30, 2023 | Places
In 1831 Ohio natives Joseph Naper and his brother, John along with their families arrived at the DuPage River. Each built a home and a sawmill. Joseph Naper’s cabin, near present day Mill and Jefferson Streets, became the nucleus of Naperville, originally known as...
by Vanessa Carlson | Jan 30, 2023 | Places
In its nearly tow hundred year history, Chicago has acquired many nicknames: the Windy City, the Second City, Chi-Town, the City of the Big Shoulders, and others. Few know that the name Chicago itself came from the foul-smelling vegetation the Miami Indians called...
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