This culturally diverse suburban city lies about ten miles west of the Chicago Loop. Berwyn has a beautiful streetscape, for its abundance of elegant Chicago-style bungalows, mostly from the 1910s and 1920s. Just north of Berwyn is the village of Oak Park, where the great Frank Lloyd Wright made an indelible impression, designing dozens of …
The largest city in McHenry County, Crystal Lake sits in the affluent Northwest Suburbs, around 45 miles from the Chicago Loop. Crystal Lake is removed from the sprawl and is bordered by open farmland, while the city has a definite, walkable core downtown where you’ll find restaurants and entertainment venues like the Raue Center for …
In Chicago’s upscale northwest suburbs, Buffalo Grove is around 25 miles from the Chicago Loop. This village of 40,000 had a population of just 1,500 in 1960, but has a long history going back to the Potawatomi people and a German dairy farming community that cropped up in the 1830s. Buffalo Grove is often named …
This village is on the border between DuPage and Cook counties in the Chicago suburbs. One of Hanover Park’s great assets is the amount of public natural land that can be discovered on foot, by bike or even on skis in the winter. These have interlinking trail systems, so despite being in a large metropolitan …
This northwestern suburb of Chicago has put a lot of care into its downtown area over the last few years. Centering on a sociable village green, the streets around the Metra station have wrought-iron lamp posts, colorful flower displays and newly planted trees, creating a walkable focal point for the village. Something special about Mount …
This wealthy western suburb sits about 25 miles west of the Chicago Loop in an area replete with nature preserves and sprawling parks. One such place in Wheaton is Cantigny Park, founded in the 19th-century by the Chicago Tribune publisher, and offering two excellent museums and sublime gardens to explore. In fact there are a …
This leafy Northwest Suburb is approximately 30 miles from the Chicago Loop. Hoffman Estates is a diverse community of 55,000 and offers lots of family-oriented attractions, great shopping opportunities and an extraordinary amount of natural space. There are several Forest Preserves of Cook County on the village’s doorstep, the largest of which is the Arthur …
Fifteen minutes from downtown St. Louis, and with three Metrolink stations, Belleville is the most populous city in southern Illinois. Belleville came to prominence at the end of the 19th century as a manufacturing hub, and the Labor & Industry Museum charts that intriguing period. One of several things that will strike you about this …
Fronting the world-famous Mississippi River, Rock Island is a historic and culturally vibrant city, and the seat of Rock Island County. The city is also one of the Quad Cities (Pop. 400,000) that straddle the Mississippi and the Illinois-Iowa line, and contains Arsenal Island, an active U.S. Army camp for more than two centuries. A …
On the Mississippi riverbank in Western Illinois, Moline is part of the Quad Cities urban area that straddles the Illinois-Iowa state line. Moline is renowned for its manufacturing heritage, which can be traced back to 1848, when the inventor and entrepreneur John Deere (1804-1886) relocated his steam plow company here. John Deere is still headquartered …