Water in Glenview, Illinois

The region where Glenview is now located was originally inhabited by the Winnebago and then Potawatomi tribes of Native Americans. Over time, these agricultural societies were displaced and their land gradually seized in a series of treaties, until in the Treaty of Chicago in 1833 the native tribes were forced to give up their last five million acres and surrender all claims to Northern Illinois. It’s at this time that the first white settlers moved into the what is now modern Glenview, at the time referred to as South Northfield.

The community grew and prospered during the Civil War years, and then in 1871 the Great Chicago Fire brought the construction of the Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad. This railroad was used to service Chicago’s rebuilding needs and it ran right through the center of town, making Chicago suddenly accessible to South Northfield and creating opportunities for manufacturing and the delivery of agricultural products to the city.

The designation of South Northfield was a mouthful though, and so in 1878 Fred Hutchings renamed the community Oak Glen. However, there was already a community that had incorporated as Oak Glen and the railroad wanted to avert confusion with a different name. They suggested Hutchings, in honor of the railroad benefactor Sarah Hutchings’s late husband James, but she didn’t want their name on the station which consisted of a run-down old box car. They opted to name the station Barr after the railroad division superintendent, and so it remained until 1895, when the community, pressured by the post office to finally pick a formal name, held a meeting where Glenview was voted the new name.

A few years later, with the population increasing faster than resources could be provided, the community held a vote to incorporate. It failed, but a year later in 1899 a second vote passed, and the Village of Glenview was born with a population of 325.

Since then, Glenview has enjoyed bountiful success and grown into a sizeable town. The population has grown from 6,142 in 1950 to 41,847 in 2000. In 1967 the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) purchased five acres in Glenview to use as a conservation and botanical research area called Peacock Prairie. It’s now one of the only remaining pieces of untouched prairie in Illinois. Kraft Foods, Scott Foresman and Co., and Zenith Electronics have additionally all located their headquarters in Glenview.

With a mix of natural beauty and modern progress, the community of Glenview has much to be proud of and more to look forward to.