The diverse village of South Holland is in Southland Chicago, roughly contained to the south by Interstate 80 and the east by Illinois Route 1. Running east to west through South Holland is 162nd S (U.S. Route 6), where there’s an unending line of eateries, many of which are family-run spots that have been around …
Immediately south of Chicago’s city limits, Dolton is a mostly residential suburban village bounded to the north by the Little Calumet River. The name comes from one George Dolton, who settled in the area in 1835 and whose son became the village’s first postmaster in 1866. Around this time Dolton became a base for major …
This fast-growing suburban community in the Fox River Valley has more than tripled in population since 1990. The history of South Elgin goes back much further, and from the late 19th century was hooked up to an interurban railway. That line is the origin of the excellent Fox River Trolley Museum, which runs antique trolleys …
On the Illinois river, Pekin is a city of 35,000 in Central Illinois. The name was chosen in the late 1820s when it was thought that this spot was at the exact opposite point on the globe to Peking, in China. A real point of pride in Pekin is Mineral Springs Park, which was landscaped …
In the last decades of the 19th century this suburban city on the Fox River was a center for windmill manufacturing, a fact remembered by the windmill on Batavia’s logo. A fascinating thing about Batavia is that many of those old factories, built from the pale local limestone, are still standing. This old architecture brings …
On the Kishwaukee River in Northern Illinois, Belvidere is in the Rockford metropolitan area, but has its own story to tell. The county seat of Boone County, Belvidere took shape in the 1830s as a stop on the stagecoach line between Chicago and Galena, passing through on the north side of the river. Later the …
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 …