Over 170 years ago, Everett, Illinois was the beginning of what is known as the city of Lake Forest today. Located 30 miles north of Chicago, Everett was home to early pioneers on the route from Chicago to Green Bay. The natural geography of the land provided for ideal farmsteads and also a home to families working on the new Chicago canal. By mid-1800’s, Indians had left the area and pioneers began to organize and grow in population. Stage coaches were traveling through Everett, as many as five to six stagecoaches a day. The Green Bay Trail, originally located where the present day Waukegan Road is now located, was the main thoroughfare north to Green Bay. Originally a military trail, then a commuter route when Lake Michigan wasn’t navigable, it then evolved to a modern day transportation and mail route.
Everett was known under several names such as Meehan’s Settlement, Corduroy, Irish Settlement and then Everett. The small pioneer community of Everett had a post office, general store and two churches. The community surrounded the intersection of the present Waukegan Road and Everett Road. By 1839, Lake County was detached from McHenry county and Green Bay road (now Waukegan Road), and Everett’s population began to organize. The original Green Bay Road (now Waukegan Road) extended south and crossed at the tracks on Everett Road and continued south on what today is called Telegraph Road.
The west rail road track was installed in 1855 by the Chicago Milwaukee Railroad and eventually became the Northwestern system. Many of the Everett pioneer families still live in Lake Forest today. The Burns, Conway, Doyle, Duffy, Fagan, Gibbons, Kennedy, Lancaster, Meehan, Melody, Murphy, O’Boyle, O’Connor, Swain and Yore. Everett was home to four schools, two churches, a cemetery, dairy farms and several gentleman estates. Estates such as the J. Ogden Armour Mellody Farm, Conway Farm, Meadowood Estate, the Lasker Estate, Knollwood Club, Elawa Farm, Westleigh Farm, Cudahy estate, Teter, Behr Arcady Farm and Mill Road. Several businesses called Everett their home too, many with modern day local businesses: Fiore Nursery, Sunset Foods, Pasquesi Nursery.
Everett was annexed with Lake Forest in 1926. Since then, west Lake Forest has grown to encompass a total of nineteen square miles of Lake Forest. Prominent on the west side was the A.B. Dick family with their estate located on both the east and west side of today’s Route 41. The A.B. Dick family donated their family property to build a new hospital for Lake Forest. Today, Northwestern Lake Forest hospital serves the community. West Lake Forest (Everett), Illinois tells the story of the beginning of Lake Forest. Its roots are in the stories told by school children talking about everyday life on the prairie. Their stories tell about life in the 1800’s, going to school, building homes, raising crops, finding water, living with Indians, hunting for food, building a spiritual community and raising their families on the north shore of Chicago. This exclusive look at Everett will share those stories and assembled photos to enjoy the before and after photos in Everett.
