Historical society exhibit tells history of Lake Forest’s west side

The story of the west side of Lake Forest — traditionally thought as the area west of Route 41 — is a story of pioneers, of farmers, of communities built around transportation hubs, of annexation.

It is a story often ignored in favor of the history of the east side of the city.

“The story of the west side of the community sometimes gets a little bit lost when people are thinking about the founding of Lake Forest,” said Laurie Stein, curator of the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society. “People think about the east side, the Presbyterians who came out to establish Lake Forest College and Lake Forest Academy [to establish] Lake Forest in 1857. But there were people actually living in what later became the west side in the 1830s. It’s the pioneer era of Lake Forest.”

The historical society’s “West Side Stories” exhibit, which launched in April 2014, tells this story of the west side of the city — how it grew out of farmland that was settled two decades before the east side of Lake Forest was, and how it eventually merged with the rest of the city.

The first settlers in west Lake Forest were Michael Meehan and his wife Bridget, Irish immigrants who settled in Deerfield Township in 1835, according to historical society documents. The area later known as west Lake Forest was originally called “Meehan’s Settlement.”

The west side has had other names, too: “Courduroy” and “Lancaster,” or “Lancasterville.” The pioneers called Waukegan and Telegraph roads the “corduroy road” because the tree trunks that were used to elevate the road that crossed the Chicago river resembled ridges of corduroy.

“Lancaster” was named after James Lancaster, who owned the property where the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad was built through Lake County in 1872. Lancaster’s house doubled as the first train depot, and it soon became known as Lancaster station, according to historical society documents. A Lancaster post office was established there as well.

“Lancaster” was eventually renamed “Everett,” because there was another Lancaster, Ill., and a Lancaster in Wisconsin and Indiana, which was confusing. As the story goes, the historical society reported, a resident, Tom Doyle, renamed the post office and the train station Everett after the railroad ticket agent’s son.

The first church in Lake Forest was St. Patrick Catholic Church on the west side, which was among the first churches established in Lake County and in the Archdiocese of Chicago. The first log church was built in 1844, and moved to Route 60 and Waukegan, next to the first post office there. That intersection of Route 60 and Waukegan became the first central business district in west Lake Forest, beginning in the 1870s.

With its expansive farmland, schools and growing businesses, west Lake Forest was becoming a hot commodity. West Lake Forest residents petitioned the City of Lake Forest’s newly established Plan Commission to become annexed by the city in 1926. On May 11, 1926, voters approved the annexation by a vote of 303-5. The city of Lake Forest tripled in size.

“[West Lake Forest residents] wanted to insure investments in their land; they wanted to have water and electricity and people to take care of their roads and fall under Lake Forest’s zoning laws,” Stein said. “People were thinking about the planning aspect of the community. They wanted to incorporate into Lake Forest because of that, and people in Lake Forest wanted to incorporate them into the town because they didn’t want to have a factory or something like that next to them.”

The “West Side Stories” exhibit tells this story of west Lake Forest’s history, as well as displaying biographies of west Lake Forest’s movers and shakers, in addition to many artifacts donated from families with roots on the west side, Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital, the Lake County Discovery Museum and the Milwaukee Road Historical Association, among many others.

This is the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society’s first traveling exhibit, Stein said. The historical society printed several copies of the panels displayed in the exhibit and set them up at the train station, Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital, Elawa Farm and in storefronts in Market Square, which residents loved.

The “West Side Stories” exhibit will run at the historical society until mid-March. For more information, visit www.lflbhistory.org.