Downers Grove, Illinois

Downers Grove was founded in 1832 by Pierce Downer, a farmer from New York who staked his claim on a lush grove of old-growth bur oak trees at the fork of two ancient Native American trails. He had come to Illinois partly to join his son Stephen, a stonemason working on the first Chicago lighthouse. The oldest standing home in the village was built in 1839 by Reverend Orange Lyman and later served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad arrived in 1864, and the town incorporated in 1873. In 1892, Marshall Field and a group of Chicago businessmen founded the first nine-hole golf course west of the Appalachian Mountains just outside the village. A former Downers Grove resident also designed the Pioneer Zephyr, the first successful streamlined diesel-electric train in the United States, now on display at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.

City Montage