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It's hard to believe that mammoths--huge, hairy prehistoric animals--once plodded through the swamps, woods and grasslands that are today's DuPage County. Mammoths disappeared about 8,000 years ago, and no one knows why. Perhaps it was because the first humans moved into the area about that time. A mammoth would have provided many tasty meals for these early Indian hunters. Indians found present-day DuPage County a good place to live and founded villages here. For hundreds of years Indian villages occupied the land that is now Fermilab. It was probably not the same groups, or tribes, of Indians, who lived there over the centuries. A particular Indian tribe might live in a location for one year or 40 years or even 400 years. Other tribes might move in, stay awhile, then move on. The earliest Indians relied primarily on hunting; they moved if the numbers of animals they hunted thinned out.
In 1673 Illiniwek Indians greeted French explorers Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, when their canoes entered the southeastern corner of what would become DuPage County. By 1800 Potawatomi Indian villages stood where Oak Brook, Naperville, the Morton Arboretum and the Churchill Forest Preserve are now. Indian peoples lived in the area for over 8,000 years.
When, in the 1830's, farmers of European descent moved into the area, they changed the landscape. They chopped down trees because they wanted the wood to build houses, businesses, and roads. The natural prairie plants were torn out in order to plant crops like wheat and corn. These changes destroyed the homes of deer and other game that the Indians had hunted for food and trade. Because the new settlers also fenced off their fields, the Indians were no longer free to move about as they once had. Although there were no known incidents of Indians harming settlers in DuPage County, in 1832 the County settlers, fearful of Indian attack, fled to Fort Dearborn in Chicago. After a month they returned because a fort, Fort Payne, had been built in on a site where today North Central College's athletic field stands. The white settlers, however, continued to suspicious of the Indians. The local Potawatomi were no longer comfortable in DuPage County, and their old way of life was gone. In 1833 the remaining Indians signed a treaty selling their lands to the United State.
First Businesses
Sawmills were very important for early settlers, who cut down trees for lumber to build houses, barns and fences. Cutting down trees was hard
work. Harder still was cutting the tree trunks into lumber, or boards. Saw mills saved the early settlers much time and hard work. The County's second sawmill was built in 1835 by Julius Warren on Batavia Road, a stage coach route from Chicago to the mining center at Galena. To meet the needs of the stage coach travelers, Warren next built an inn which became the area's social center. He later added a grist mill. From this early settlement grew today's city of Warrenville.
How People Got to DuPage County
Waterways
Often it was easier to travel by water than by land. Most of the earliest settlers who came to DuPage County did travel most of the way by water. Chicago was a port city in those days and ships from the east, places like Buffalo, New York and Cleveland, were able to sail through the Great Lakes to Chicago. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 played a big role in the settlement of DuPage County. A canal is an artificial waterway, usually built to connect one natural waterway with another. Horses walked along a towpath next to the canal and pulled the canal boats full of people, their livestock, crops for market, and merchandise for the shopkeepers. The Erie Canal started in Albany, New York and ended at Lake Erie in Buffalo, New York. Travelers then took a ship to Chicago before setting out on roads to their local destinations. The Gary brothers, Erastus, Jude, and Charles, and their sister Orinda who journeyed from Connecticut to DuPage County, traveled on the Erie Canal as did many others. Harriet Greene, a new bride who came to DuPage County in 1845 traveled a similar route. Her letters about the journey describes her fellow travelers…"two grave Quaker Ladies, a gouty old man, his difficult wife and daughter, two gay Frenchmen." She tells about the Indian settlements along the shore of Lake Michigan, the rolling prairie they crossed to get from Chicago to DuPage County, and even the prairie birds she saw-a prairie hen and a sandhill crane. Harriet and her husband settled where Hobson Road crosses the East Branch of the DuPage River in today's Woodridge.
Land Travel
Long-distance travel was very hard. Land travel for families required a wagon and team of horses or oxen. Conestoga wagons, with the white "sails" covering the wagon bed, came through DuPage County, usually carrying settlers further west. Families who could not afford their own wagon and team rented space in wagons operated by professional wagoners. Roads were often muddy and the wagons got stuck. A wagon might cover only fifteen miles a day. Plank roads, made from logs cut into planks, were a great improvement. The many oak trees growing in DuPage County provided good building materials for these roads. The Southwestern Plank Road (later renamed Ogden Avenue) went from Chicago to Naperville. From Naperville other roads led south to Oswego and north to Galena. At one time, 500 teams of horses stopped to pay tolls at the intersection of what is now York Road and Ogden Avenue. Another plank road passed through Elmhurst following the route of today's Irving Park Road. This road, the Western Plank Road, was built of three-inch boards laid across a sixteen foot wide beds. It had tolls every 5 miles; the cheapest toll was a 2 ½ cent fare for a single rider. Plank roads required constant maintenance because the lumber wore out or rotted away and had to be replaced. The great white oaks that had grown abundantly in DuPage County were virtually wiped out as trees were cut to provide plank lumber for roads.
Railroads
Soon another kind of transportation brought even more people to DuPage County. This exciting new form of transport was the railroad. In 1848 Warren and Jesse Wheaton and Erastus Gary gave land to the railroad company so that a rail line would come through their land holdings. This railroad line, which ran from Chicago to Galena, ran through settlements that are today's Glen Ellyn, Wheaton, Winfield and West Chicago. The first DuPage County station was built in 1859 in Winfield (then called "Warren" after Colonel Julius Warren, a neighbor). Later, other railroads would cross other parts of the County. By now DuPage County residents had many products that needed to go to Chicago and beyond to be sold. In addition to farm products-especially corn, wheat and milk--there were steel plows from the A.S. Jones Factory, beer from the Stenger Brewery in Naperville, and bricks and tiles from King Tile and Brick Works in Lombard. Stone quarries in Lombard and Elmhurst provided important material for the tile and brick works.
Railroads also made it easier for people in DuPage County to buy the products they wanted. At first, settlers cooked and heated their homes with open fireplaces, but by 1850 most settlers had changed to wood-burning stoves. Stoves were very heavy, and the railroad made it possible for them to be shipped to the nearest train depot. Then families ony had to cart the stove by horse and wagon from the closest train depot to their home. Other goods shipped by rail were cloth and household goods. Hand weaving was very time-consuming. Housewives much preferred to go to the general stores in the towns to purchase the cloth needed for their families' clothes. Clothing the family was also made much easier, because of another great laborsaving device, the sewing machine another item transported by train. Oil lamps were also in great demand because they gave more light than candles. As rail service improved, the stores were able to stock their shelves with more and more merchandise.
Learn more about this city
County of DUPAGE, CA official site
County of DUPAGE, CA general information
County of DUPAGE, CA newspaper