Sheridan Road


Sheridan Road is a major north-south street that leads from Diversey Parkway in Chicago, Illinois, north to the Illinois-Wisconsin border and beyond to Racine. Throughout most of its run, it is the easternmost north-south through street, closest to Lake Michigan. From Chicago, it passes through Chicago's wealthy lakeside North Shore suburbs, and then Waukegan and Zion, until it reaches the Illinois-Wisconsin state line in Winthrop Harbor. In Wisconsin, the road leads north through Pleasant Prairie and Kenosha, until it ends on the south side of Racine, in Mount Pleasant.
From North Chicago to the state line, Sheridan Road is signed as part of Illinois Route 137 in Illinois, and Wisconsin Highway 32 through Kenosha and Racine in Wisconsin. Sheridan Road is known for its historic sites, lakefront parks, and gracious mansion homes in Evanston through Lake Bluff.

Chicago path

  • It runs at 400 west from 2800 north to 3181 north.
  • It runs at 3900 north from 600 west to 956 west.
  • It runs at 1000 west from 3900 north to 6356 north.
  • It runs at 6400 north from 970 west to 1158 west.
  • It runs at 1200 west from 6400 north to 6756 north.
  • It runs from 1200 west at 6800 north to 1400 west at 7800 north.

History

A suburban extension of Chicago's Lake Shore Drive to Waukegan was first promoted by the North Shore Improvement Association in the late 1880s. In 1889 this road was named Sheridan Road for Philip Henry Sheridan, a general in the Civil War who coordinated military relief efforts in Chicago following the Great Chicago Fire. Much of the route had been laid out by 1893, and in 1894 it was proposed that the new road should be extended to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Progress on the construction of the road was slowed by local opposition in some of the communities that it was to pass through, and construction was not completed until 1918.
A statue of Sheridan by artist Gutzon Borglum was placed alongside Sheridan Road and Belmont Avenue in Chicago's Lincoln Park in 1924.
Sheridan Road in Illinois was signed as Illinois Route 42 in 1924; the original route ran along Sheridan Road from the Wisconsin border to Waukegan, then turned west along Washington Street, south along Green Bay Road, east along Rockland Road before running south along Waukegan Road.
In 1925, Route 42 was realigned to include all of Sheridan Road in Illinois; the route continued south to the Indiana border at Hammond, and the old route became Illinois Route 42A.
In 1929, the southern terminus of Route 42 was changed to the south end of Sheridan Road as US 41 supplanted the southern part of the route. This made the route coextensive with the Illinois portion of Sheridan Road.
In 1930, Wisconsin Highway 42 was designated along the road in Wisconsin.
In 1951, the WIS 42 designation was replaced by a WIS 32 one.
Throughout the 1960s, much of the road was rebuilt with the construction of Interstate 43.
Route 42 was removed from the state highway system in 1972.
In 1974, as part of the Amstutz Expressway's construction, the road was narrowed to two lanes and an overpass built in Waukegan.
The road was designated as part of the Lake Michigan Circle Tour in 1988.
On September 5, 2025, a one-block section of Sheridan Road was given an honorary street name after comedian Bob Newhart, the Chicago native whose The [Bob Newhart Show|titular 1970s sitcom] took place in the city. Bob Newhart Way is in front of the Thorndale Beach Condominiums, which served as the setting for the home of Newhart's character Bob Hartley and his wife Emily.

Places of interest

There are several landmarks and places of interest along Sheridan Road. The street passes through central business districts in the Uptown area of Chicago, Highland Park, Illinois, Highwood, Illinois, Lake Forest, Illinois, Waukegan, Illinois, Zion, Illinois, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, and near those of several other communities. Notable landmarks in order from southernmost to northernmost: