The Suburb Of Lake Villa

Primary Keyword: Suburb of Lake Villa, Chicago Secondary Keyword: Chicago, Lake Villa, Lake Geneva, Lake Michigan, Glacier Park Page Title: The Suburb of Lake Villa Sub Title: Lake Villa

During the late s many residents of Chicago and the surrounding area referred to Lake Villa as the Lake Geneva of Chicagoland. Chicagoland had then become accepted as the term that best described the entire mass of buildings and people that had arisen from the region around the city of Chicago. Lake Villa got its nickname from the construction along the banks of Lake Micihigan of a number of mansions.

In the s E.J. Lehman, a merchant who owned one of the mansions on the Lake desired to bring the railroad to his own small town. Lehman worked with the city officials to engineer a stop in Lake Villa by the local train on July , . The arrival of the trains later led to the creation of a new Lake Villa industry. In the winter, men from Lake Villa would cut blocks of ice from the Lake and then have those blocks shipped to Chicago on the train.

Today the residents of Lake Villa have honored the contributions of Lehman by turning the home he built in , Lehman Mansion, into a landmark and a tourist attraction. The residents of Lake Villa have also named one the public parks after the merchant who helped the area discover an important source of income. The industry that Lehman introduced into the area provided Lake Villa with many extra funds up until the invention of the refrigerator and the temporary insolvency of the railroad.

The changes experienced by the businessmen of Lake Villa led the Chamber of Commerce to adopt a new slogan. The officials in the Chamber chose to use the slogan on the move. This slogan reflects the growth in the Lake Villa business community since the start of the st century. Spurring that growth was the refurbishing of the Lake Villa train station. By , the Lake Villa station had the appearance of the original station.

While the Lake Villa train station looks today very much like it did almost years ago, there is little else in Lake Villa that possesses the same characteristics now that it possessed back when ice-cutting proved to be an important Lake Villa industry. Lake Villa now has three community parks, one of which, Glacier Park, is only accessible to those with a gate key. .

The key to Lake Villa’s renewed growth, and the source of a new well of available money, derived from the support of the people at Baxter, a pharmaceutical company based in the area. Recently the residents of Lake Villa received a gift, the connecting of a park trail, the Millennium Trail, to the Marl Flat Forest Preserve. Officials at Baxter facilitated the establishment of that connection. Those officials understood the importance of the Trail. They realized that they had the authority to provide the government of Lake Villa with permission to pass through Baxter-owned land. That passage is now taken daily by those who seek to follow the trails in the section of forest next to the Woods Forest Preserve.

The history of Lake Villa highlights the reason that all of the suburbs in the five counties around Chicago are considered part of Chicagoland. All of those communities have contributed to and benefited from the growth and industry of Chicago.