Northeast Cook County: Railway Map Detail, 1879
| Skokie A Community History Using Old Maps |
Skokie Historical Society Chicago Neighborhood History Project Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library |
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7. Northeast Cook County: Railway Map Detail, 1879 |
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As the railroad spread out across the prairie from Chicago, they created a new type of settlement pattern in the surrounding townships. In some areas the dense urban pattern of land use closely followed the right of way creating a string of railroad suburbs. In other areas away from the tracks, the land was used mainly for agricultural purposes. Small rural villages appeared here and there at cross-roads, but settlement would thicken in these areas only with the extension of streetcar routes from the city or, much later, with the widespread use of automobiles. Most of Niles Township in 1879 falls into the rural pattern of land use away from the railroad lines. Niles Center on the Flower map serves as a good example of a crossroads town. In the 1920s there would be some attempts to develop Niles Center as a streetcar suburb, but the Great Depression and World War II would delay the housing boom until the 1950s. |
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Railway Map of Chicago and Environs (Chicago: R. W. Dobson & George W. Waite, 1879). Chicago Historical Society. |
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The Chicago Neighborhood History Project is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Skokie Public Library. |
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