Fronting Lake Michigan, Wilmette is an attractive suburban village of around 27,000 on the North Shore. The lakefront is a big part of Wilmette’s appeal, and there are a few places where you can access the waterfront, like the sandy Gillson Beach or a rare restored dune system. The village has several shopping districts but …
This city in the western suburbs was established in the mid-19th century at the very first railroad junction west of Chicago. The name West Chicago came later, in 1896 when area businessmen hoped to attract industry to the village, and figured “West Chicago” sounded more cosmopolitan. There’s some lovely architecture from around this time along …
A relatively new community in Chicago‘s northwest suburbs, Lake in the Hills was incorporated in 1952. For its first few decades this remained a modest rural community of a few thousand, before a staggering development boom in the 90s increased the population five fold in the space of a few years. Lake in the Hills …
In the Chicago Southland, Lansing has the ambience of a small town but is also surrounded by suburban amenities like malls and shopping centers. Something special about this city is the downtown area, furnished with one-of-a-kind shops like Gayety’s, an old-timey ice cream parlor and chocolate shop with 100 years of history. For fresh air …
An affluent western suburb of Chicago, Glen Ellyn has steadily grown in population following a flurry of construction in the 1950s and 60s. The village hosts the main campus for the College of DuPage, the second-largest place of higher education in all of Illinois. The college is an asset for Glen Ellyn’s cultural scene, with …
Three mighty rivers meet near this historic town on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, about 20 miles north of downtown St. Louis. There are some fascinating characters in Alton’s past, like the fearless 19th-century abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy, and Robert Wadlow, the tallest man in recorded history. Hugging the Mississippi on the Illinois bank …
Sixty miles south of Chicago, Kankakee is a county seat and the main city in the Kankakee-Bourbonnais-Bradley metropolitan area. Home to around 28,000, the city is on the sparkling river of the same name, where French fur trappers plied their trade in the 18th century. Kankakee has some fabulous heritage, with striking buildings downtown and …
First settled by Europeans in 1832, this North Shore community straddles the North Branch of the Chicago River. That watercourse flows through a string of Cook County forest preserves, and can be accessed by hikers and bikers along the 20-mile North Branch Trail. Something handy about Niles is the free public bus service, connecting local …
On the Illinois bank of the Mississippi, Granite City is part of Greater St. Louis, and sits a short distance from The Gateway City’s most famous attractions. The city was founded in 1896 by a pair of German-American industrialist brothers who set up a steel factory producing enamel-coated kitchen supplies, known as Granite ware. In …
In the Northwest Suburbs, Elk Grove Village is a community of 35,000 along the prosperous Golden Corridor where several Fortune 500 companies are headquartered. The name of the village comes from the native elk that roamed the grassland and forests when this area was settled by German farmers in the first half of the 19th …