Rogers Park / West Ridge Historical Society

round 1835 when Philip Leonard Rogers arrived in the area that would bear his name, he wanted to establish a profitable trading post with the indians. Pottawattomie, Chippewa and Ottawa tribes lived in the area before Europeans arrived. Rogers built a log cabin right near the intersection of what is now Lunt Avenue and the Indian Boundary Line, a territorial boundary established by the Treaty of 1816 between the Pottawattomie Indians and the U.S. government. The boundary line, which ran through the land that is now the park, remained in effect only through 1833, when the Pottawattomies were forced entirely from the area in the face of white settlement.