Happy 150 Evanston!

December 29, 2013, marks 150 years since the founding of the northern Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois.

I had a memorable trip to Evanston back in August, which was focused on visiting the home of Charles Gates Dawes, which you can read about in the post on this blog entitled, "Visit to a Vice President's Property".  After living in Evanston for some years, he went to serve as Vice President of the United States, in the Coolidge administration, the only person from Chicagoland to serve in that office.  (I also found out in a wonderful Chicago Tribune piece on Evanston's sesquicentennial that another presidential cabinet official, William Jennings Bryan, was a student at Northwestern University in Evanston.)

My visit there got me thinking about the number of things my hometown, Oak Park, and Evanston have in common.  Here's a few things I came up with:

1. Both had resident fervently committed to strong moral values at the time of their foundings.

2. Both are located along a geological ridge line, and previous names for these municipal areas (Ridgeville for Evanston, and Oak Ridge for Oak Park) reflected this.

3. Both have a variety of housing stock, including fancier 18th century homes, and more modest bungalow homes.  (When I first arrived in Evanston, and walked from the CTA Purple Line to the Dawes House past some fancy homes, I had to wonder if all Evanston homes were like those.  I found out from an exhibit in the home, which also houses the Evanston History Center, that bungalows are prevalent, on the other side of the city.)

4. Both were predominantly Caucasian communities for years from their founding, and then went through great struggle to achieve racial integration in the 20th Century.

5. This is probably the most obvious, but both are neighboring suburbs of the City of Chicago, and have CTA Rapid Transit access to the Loop Downtown Chicago, though the Purple Line has express runs to the Loop on weekdays.

I suppose that Evanston has a more privileged position, being the only Chicago suburb to border the City of Chicago, and have a shoreline on Lake Michigan. (I'm still puzzled over why Evanston charges admission to its public beaches.  I mean, come one, God made the beach.  Shouldn't it be free?  We'll stick with Chicago's beaches on this one.)  Evanston also has a prestigious university, but Oak Park is close enough to a university town, in neighbor River Forest, which has two.

From what I experienced of Evanston during that one visit in August, I can say it is a fine place in the northern Chicago suburbs.  I wish it and all its residents a very happy celebration of their city's 150 years, and best wishes for the years to come.

P.S. As Evanston celebrates 150 years, so I mark 50 posts on my blog with this one.