North Shore (Chicago)

Map of northeastern Illinois showing the North Shore and surrounding areas.

The North Shore consists of many affluent suburbs north of Chicago, Illinois, bordering the shores of Lake Michigan. These communities fall within suburban Cook County and Lake County. The North Shore's membership is often a topic of debate, and is sometimes expanded to include other affluent Chicago suburbs which do not border Lake Michigan. However, Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Lake Forest, and Lake Bluff are generally considered to be the core members of the North Shore, as all are affluent communities that border the lake just north of Chicago. Other suburbs such as Glenview, Northbrook, Deerfield, Highwood, Skokie, and Northfield are often considered to be a part of the North Shore, but do not border Lake Michigan.

History

Many credit Walter S. Gurnee as the father of the North Shore[1]

Europeans settled the area sparsely after an 1833 treaty with local Native Americans. The region began to be developed into towns following the opening of Northwestern University in Evanston in 1855 and the founding of Lake Forest College two years later, and the construction and launch of railroads serving the colleges and their towns.

Electric rail lines were also run from Chicago, parallel to steam commuter lines, and streetcars flourished throughout the suburbs from Evanston on north. The North Shore today is noteworthy for being one of the few remaining agglomerations of streetcar suburbs in the United States.

This area became popular with the affluent wanting to escape urban life, beginning after the Great Chicago Fire, and grew rapidly before and just after World War II with a growing Jewish population migrating out of various neighborhoods in Chicago. The major Jewish suburban communities include Evanston, Skokie, Glencoe and Highland Park. Jews, however, were barred from Kenilworth and Lake Forest. The number of Jews in the north suburbs increased to 40% by the early 1960s. It is notable, too, that at this point in time most of these north suburbs were almost entirely white. One informal 1967 poll by mostly white residents of the North Shore seeking to promote open housing suggested that of 2,000 real estate listings, only 38 were open to African-Americans.[2]

Communities and their years of settlement and incorporation

Source:[3]

Community Year of settlement Year of incorporation Population
1 Lake Forest 1834 (c.) 1861 21,300
2 Glencoe 1835 1869 8,723
3 Winnetka 1836 1869 12,419
4 Lake Bluff 1836 1895 6,056
5 Wilmette 1840 1872 27,087
6 Highland Park 1847 1869 29,763
7 Evanston 1853 1863 74,486
8 Kenilworth 1889 1896 2,494

Socioeconomics and culture

Chicago, as seen from the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston.

Today the North Shore remains one of the most affluent and highly educated areas in the United States. Seven of its communities are in the top quintile of U.S. household income, and five of those (Lake Forest, Glencoe, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Highland Park) are in the top 5 percent. From Evanston to Lake Bluff, only Highwood falls below the national median.

The North Shore is also the home of the Ravinia Festival, a historic outdoor music theater in Highland Park, Illinois. The Ravinia Festival, originally conceived as a weekend destination on the CNS&M line, is now a popular destination on the Metra Union Pacific North Line commuter rail, the North Shore Line's former competitor.

The abandoned right-of-way of the North Shore Line still serves Ravinia as the Green Bay Trail, a popular rails-to-trails bicycle path that begins in Wilmette and runs north all the way to the Illinois Beach State Park in Zion.

Origin and definition of term

One of the earliest known monographs to be devoted to the North Shore, The Book of the North Shore (1910), and its companion volume, The Second Book of the North Shore (1911), were written by Marian A. White, whose husband J. Harrison White had established a weekly newspaper in Rogers Park in 1895 called the North Shore Suburban.[4] The image above is the title page of the first volume and shows the front door of the S.H. Gunder house at 6219 N. Sheridan Road, which today serves as the main building for the North Lakeside Cultural Center in Chicago. The canopy has subsequently been removed.

Early histories of Chicago do not use the term North Shore. It began to come into use in the early 1880s and by 1889, with the creation of the North Shore Improvement Association, the name was officially established.[5] In 1890 Joseph Sears used the term several times in a brochure that was written to promote the newly-forming community of Kenilworth.[6] It is believed to have come into widespread use following the establishment in 1891 of the Waukegan & North Shore Rapid Transit Company, which in 1916 following reorganization was renamed the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad ("CNS&M"). This railway ran along Lake Michigan's western shore between Chicago and Milwaukee. The "Shore Line Route" of the CNS&M until 1955 served, from south to north, the Illinois communities of Chicago, Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Highwood, Fort Sheridan, Lake Forest, Lake Bluff, North Chicago, Waukegan, Zion, and Winthrop Harbor as well as Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee in Wisconsin. The line was popularly referred to, including in the railroad's own brochures and timetables, as the "North Shore Line." After 1924 the "Skokie Valley" line of the CNS&M opened land further west to the North Shore.

Meanwhile, in 1906, the Sanitary District of Chicago platted the "North Shore Channel" of the sanitary canal from the Chicago River, through Evanston and Wilmette to Lake Michigan.[7]

While the CNS&M ran from Chicago all the way to Milwaukee, the term "North Shore" today typically refers only to the communities between Lake Bluff and Chicago. Michael Ebner's scholarly Creating Chicago's North Shore: A Suburban History, one of the most thorough studies of the area, covers eight suburbs along the lake: Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Lake Forest, and Lake Bluff.[8] In their North Shore Chicago: Houses of the Lakefront Suburbs, 1890-1940, Cohen and Benjamin include not only those eight suburbs but also "the tiny city of Highwood" which is slightly inland, just north of Highland Park.[9]

The Greater North Shore

Subsequent to the more general use of the term North Shore for the above suburbs, and the term's association with those towns' desirable socioeconomic characteristics, it became common for businesses in numerous nearby inland Chicago suburbs in the Maine, New Trier, Niles and Northfield Townships and in southern Lake County, Illinois to name themselves "North Shore," and for real estate and other marketers to use the term for non-North Shore communities from time to time. The former North Shore magazine had special advertising editions not only for Evanston, Winnetka, Lake Forest, and Lake Bluff but also for Glenview, Northbrook, Barrington, Deerfield, Bannockburn, and Riverwoods.[10] Chicago's North Shore Convention & Visitors Bureau's markets the City of Evanston and the Villages of Skokie, Glenview, Northbrook and Winnetka.[11] More recently, a community newspaper known as "What's Happening" began mailing out its publication to what it characterizes as the "16 affluent North Shore suburbs": Bannockburn, Buffalo Grove, Deerfield, Fort Sheridan, Glencoe, Glenview, Highland Park, Kenilworth, Libertyville, Lincolnshire, Northbrook, Northfield, Riverwoods, Vernon Hills, Wilmette, and Winnetka.[12] Overall, the general usage of the term, North Shore, applies to the following suburbs: Bannockburn, Deerfield, Des Plaines, Evanston, Fort Sheridan, Glencoe, Glenview, Golf, Green Oaks, Highland Park, Highwood, Hubbard Woods, Kenilworth, Lake Bluff, Lake Forest, Libertyville, Lincolnshire, Lincolnwood, Mettawa, Morton Grove, Niles, Northbrook, Northfield, Park Ridge, Riverwoods, Rosemont, Skokie, Techny, Vernon Hills, Wheeling, Wilmette, and Winnetka. This geographic area favored by marketeers extends from Chicago’s northern boundary into southern Lake County and from Lake Michigan to O’Hare Airport.[13]

Education

Mostly the Central Suburban League public high schools cater to the North Shore. The Central Suburban League is an IHSA-recognized high school extracurricular conference comprising 12 public schools located in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Comprising 12 relatively large high schools, it is among the larger high school conferences (by student population) in Illinois.[14] The Central Suburban League high schools include: Deerfield High School (Deerfield, IL), Evanston Township High School (Evanston, IL), Glenbrook North High School (Northbrook, IL), Glenbrook South High School (Glenview, IL), Highland Park High School (Highland Park, IL), Maine South High School (Park Ridge, IL), Maine East High School (Park Ridge, IL), Maine West High School (Des Plaines, IL), New Trier High School (Winnetka, IL), Niles West High School (Skokie, IL), Niles North High School (Skokie, IL), and Vernon Hills High School (Vernon Hills, IL).

Lake Forest High School, Libertyville High School, and Stevenson High School, are in the North Suburban Conference. The Lake Forest High School district serves Lake Forest and Lake Bluff, while the Stevenson High School district serves Lincolnshire and most of Buffalo Grove. Stevenson also takes in students from smaller parts of other North Shore suburbs such as Deerfield, Mettawa, Lake Forest, Riverwoods, Vernon Hills, as well as reaching into the far Northwest Suburbs such as Hawthorn Woods, Kildeer, Lake Zurich, Mundelein, and Long Grove.

Wheeling High School serves most of Wheeling, Illinois which is in the Mid-Suburban League.

Oakton Community College serves the same district as the Central Suburban League, with campuses in Des Plaines and Skokie. College of Lake County serves the Lake County suburbs of the North Shore, with its campus in Grayslake, Illinois. Harper College serves Wheeling with its campus in Palatine, Illinois.

There are also a variety of private schools throughout the North Shore suburbs.

Films and television set or filmed on the North Shore

This area received much exposure in the 1980s as the setting of many teen films, particularly those of writer/director John Hughes, who grew up in Northbrook and attended Glenbrook North High School. The most notable films through the years are:

Places of interest

Bahá'í House of Worship, Wilmette, Illinois. The temple is the only Bahá'í House of Worship in America.

References

  1. ↑ Ebner, Michael H. (1989). Creating Chicago's North Shore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 22. ISBN 0-226-18205-3.
  2. ↑ "Few Homes Found Open to Negro Buyer". Chicago Tribune. 15 June 1967.
  3. ↑ Grossman, James R.; Ann Durkin Keating; Janice L. Reiff (2004). The Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 285, 338, 380, 444–445, 452, 455, 881, 882–3. ISBN 0-226-31015-9. Retrieved 2011-11-15.
  4. ↑ White, Marian A. (1910). The Book of the North Shore. Chicago: J. Harrison White. p. 106.
  5. ↑ Grossman, Ron (June 28, 1988). "North Shore Lore". The Chicago Tribune.
  6. ↑ Kenilworth: The Modern Suburban Home. Chicago. 1890.
  7. ↑ "North Shore Sanitary Canal". Retrieved 2010-11-19.
  8. ↑ Ebner, Michael H. (1989). Creating Chicago's North Shore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. xvii. ISBN 0-226-18205-3.
  9. ↑ Cohen, Stuart; Susan Benjamin (2005). North Shore Chicago: Houses of the Lakefront Suburbs, 1890-1940. New York: Acanthus Press. p. 44. ISBN 0-926494-26-0.
  10. ↑ North Shore magazine, accessed 15 Dec 2009.
  11. ↑ Chicago's North Shore Convention & Visitors Bureau, March 2012.
  12. ↑ "What's Happening! History"., accessed 21 Jul 2011.
  13. ↑ "North Shore Senior Center"., accessed 18 Mar 2012.
  14. ↑ 2008–09 official school enrollments
  15. ↑ http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-12-09/news/0412090432_1_danny-ocean-linus-caldwell-ocean-s-twelve
  16. ↑ http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-12-09/news/0412090432_1_danny-ocean-linus-caldwell-ocean-s-twelve
  17. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377092/trivia
  18. ↑ http://www.triblocal.com/glencoe/2010/11/29/matt-damon-in-glencoe/

Further reading

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