Patrick Leonard Touhy
by Hank Morris Patrick Leonard Touhy (1839-1911) was born in Freakle, Ireland. He eventually immigrated to New York where he worked in the carpet business. In 1864, he moved to […]
History Articles
Philip McGregor Rogers
by Hank Morris Philip McGregor Rogers (August 15, 1812 – December 13, 1856) once owned all the land in an area bounded by Lake Michigan, Birchwood Terrace (now Juneway Terrace), […]
The Rogers Park Library
by Hank Morris The first Rogers Park Library was a private one established in 1874 in the Old Doland block on Clark Street. It was opened by the Rogers Park […]
Sheridan Rd., Devon to City Limits
Named after Civil War General Philip Henry Sheridan (March 6, 1831 – August 5, 1888), who took charge of restoring law and order after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, […]
A Brief History of West Ridge
by Hank Morris The history of West Ridge is so intertwined with that of Rogers Park that, at times, the two seem inseparable. When Rogers Park was incorporated in 1878, […]
The Indian Boundary Line
by Hank Morris Like many diagonal streets that interrupt the grid patterned streets of Chicago, Rogers Avenue comes from a past far earlier than the surveyors who laid out Chicago’s […]
An Early History of Birchwood Beach
As late as the 1870s, the area now known as Birchwood Beach, along Lake Michigan from Touhy Avenue to Birchwood Avenue, had no paved streets and was a sandbank filled […]
Hayes Point and Loyola University
The small, almost indiscernible, point of land that juts into Lake Michigan on the southeast border of Rogers Park is not particularly remarkable from a topographical perspective. This area was […]
Ridge Boulevard
Chicago is famous as a city built on a grid of streets, each laid out one-eighth of a mile apart from the other, many of them stretching for miles through […]