Wilmette, Illinois
Wilmette is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Bordering Lake Michigan, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Skokie, Northfield, Glenview, and Evanston, Illinois, it is located north of Chicago's downtown district. Wilmette had a population of 28,170 at the 2020 census. The first and only Baháʼí House of Worship in North America is located in Wilmette. Wilmette is also home to Central Elementary School and Romona Elementary School, both recent recipients of the National Blue Ribbon award bestowed by the U.S. Department of Education.
History
19th century
Early history
Wilmette was a forested area with high bluffs along its lakeshore. Before European settlement, members of the Potawatomi tribe lived in the area that would later become Wilmette. Native Americans were forced out of the area by treaties in the 1820s and 1830s.The Ouilmette reservation
The village is named in honor of Archange and Antoine Ouilmette.Archange Chevallier Ouilmette was born in approximately 1781 at Sugar Creek, Michigan. She was the daughter of Pierese Chevallier, a French fur trader, and his Potawatomi wife, Chopa. She was among the earliest recorded residents of Chicago, having settled there prior to its official incorporation. In either 1796 or 1797 she married Antoine Ouilmette, a French-Canadian fur trader. Together they would ultimately have eight children, the last being born in 1808.
On July 29, 1829, as a condition of the Second Treaty of Prairie du Chien, the U.S. government awarded of land in present-day Wilmette and Evanston to Archange Chevallier Ouilmette. The Ouilmettes moved into a cabin that they built on this reserved land.
In the late 1830s Antoine Ouilmette was involved in litigation against Joseph Fountain of Evanston and others, whom he accused of trespassing and illegally harvesting timber from the Ouilmette family's reservation. Ouilmette lost the suit and paid a large bill in court costs. It was after this that the Ouilmette family decided to leave. In 1838, the Ouilmette family moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where many Potawatomi had previously relocated. Archange Chevallier Ouilmette died there on November 25, 1840, and Antoine Ouilmette died there on December 1, 1841.
After Archange's and Antoine's deaths, seven of their children petitioned the federal government for permission to sell the land, as the treaty had stipulated that no part of land could be sold without permission from the President of the United States. All of the children, except for one, were living in Council Bluffs with no intention of moving back. They reasoned that they were living too far away to protect the land from illegal timber poaching. President James K. Polk approved the sale of the land, and in 1845 the entire reservation was collectively sold by the Ouilmette children, save for one sliver that Joseph Ouilmette sold individually at a later date.
Early settlement after the Ouilmettes
A number of early settlers worked small farms in the area, many of them near the lakeshore. Mary Dennis, Max Dusham, Charles Beaubien, Simon Doyle, Wendal Alles, Joel Stebbins, and Arunah Hill were among the most prominent members of this thinly settled community, and some of their descendants remained in the area for generations. In the 1850s and 1860s, more prosperous entrepreneurs from New York State and the Eastern seaboard bought out many of these settlers. Among them were Alexander McDaniel, John G. Westerfield, Henry Dingee, and John Gage. During this period, Illinois more generally was experiencing a high degree of land speculation and settlement.The Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad tracks were built in 1855, facilitating the settlement of what would become the North Shore. Several large owners of land within the former reservation saw the opportunity to develop a community, and offered to build a station at their own expense if the railway would agree to stop in Wilmette The offer was accepted, and in 1869, the Chicago and Milwaukee Railway began service to the station. The first station burned, but the second one had been finished by 1874 and is still in existence today. This was a predecessor of today's Wilmette station.
In 1871 Central School, the community's first public school, was established in a one-room schoolhouse.
The community was officially incorporated on September 19, 1872, as the Village of Wilmette, at Andrew Sherman's house on Greenleaf Avenue. John Westerfield, whose large farm on the lakeshore occupied the area where the original Ouilmette cabin had been, was elected as the new village's first president.
In 1875 Wilmette's Protestant denominations partnered to construct the Union Evangelical Church at the northeast corner of Wilmette and Lake Avenues, an arrangement that would ultimately fail, as the groups came to construct their own churches. The largest denomination, the Methodists, were left with ownership of this first church building
In the 1880s the Royal Arcanum Hall, a barn-like building on the northeast corner of Wilmette and Central Avenues, served as a gathering place for local residents, while the train depot served as a polling space during elections.
Village of Gross Point
Much of the area that is today known simply as west Wilmette was once a very distinct community.German-speaking Roman Catholic farmers from the Mosel Valley near Luxembourg in what is now Germany, many of them from in and around the city of Trier, had begun settling the area in the late 1830s. They developed a cohesive farming community and were active in the governance of New Trier Township, which built roads, schools and drainage ditches. Due to the rural area, it was a difficult place for the Chicago diocese to staff with priests. Eventually, Fr. William Netstraeter was appointed in 1872, and he would serve the faith community for five decades, as well as become a Wilmette trustee for two terms and help found New Trier High School. In 1874, the community was incorporated as the Village of Gross Point, using the traditional voyageur name for the area immediately north of Chicago. Some prominent Gross Point family names include Hoffmann, Braun, Bauer, Schneider, Schaefer, Schaefgen, Reinwald, Bleser, Schwall, Engel, Steffens, Lauermann, Thalmann, Loutsch, Rengel, Nanzig, and Borre. For the next half-century, Gross Point would remain a separate entity from Wilmette. Gross Point remained a small community, with its population never exceeding 500.
Taverns were a major business in Gross Point. At least fifteen operated along Ridge Road, the village's eastern boundary, directly across the street from St. Joseph's. These were controversial: many in surrounding communities, especially Evanston bitterly opposed the saloon trade, and made several attempts—ultimately successful—to shut it down. Upon the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, there was attempted attack of the St. Josephs rectory where Fr. Netstraeter lived, as he was an advocate for prohibition.
St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church was established in 1845 at the corner of Lake Avenue and Ridge Road. In 1873, the church opened a school. Many of the children in Gross Point attended school at St. Joseph, where they were taught by nuns from Milwaukee's School Sisters of St. Francis until 1981; the Archdiocese of Chicago closed the school in 1986, but parish families reopened it a decade later. The German language was frequently used in the classrooms up until World War I, when the school abandoned this practice due to anti-German feeling in the United States. Prior to then, because Masses were only celebrated in German, English-speaking Catholics petitioned the Archdiocese of Chicago to open a second parish in the area, which would become St. Francis Xavier Church in 1904. Upon the death of Fr. Netstraeter in 1924, it was discovered that he bequeathed a large monetary sum of his estate for the construction of a new church. The money was temporarily borrowed by Cardinal George Mundelein, but returned in 1938 and was used to construct the current, St. Joseph's church, which opened in 1939. St. Francis Xavier Church would be merged with St. Joseph Parish in 2019 with much controversy.
In 1897 Gross Point opened up a small public school west of Ridge Road on Wilmette Avenue. The Gross Point Public School was housed in a two-room, two-story brick building built on that had been donated by the Nanzig family. Its building would later become the home of the American Legion Post 46.
The 1890s
By the early 1890s the Chicago & Milwaukee Railroad had double-tracked its line in Wilmette. In 1890 Wilmette constructed its first village hall. In 1892 the village began purchasing treated water from Evanston and had begun to set up telephone service. In 1895 the village established the Wilmette Public Works Department to provide maintenance to the village's infrastructure. In 1897 the railway built a new and larger Frost & Granger-designed station house for its Chicago & Milwaukee station, on the east side of the tracks. The 1874 station building was relocated and used for freight, and later for general storage.The Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee began service in Wilmette in 1899. Its route entered Wilmette along the Northwestern Elevated tracks. After leaving the Linden station, the trains ran west on Greenleaf Avenue, before running north alongside the tracks of the Chicago & Milwaukee railroad. The segment which ran parallel to the Chicago & Milwaukee railroad is today occupied by the 9-mile Green Bay Trail.
Wilmette was home to a variety of social and literary clubs. Among these was the Wilmette Woman's Club, which was founded in 1891 as a reading club but quickly expanded to embrace a wide variety of philanthropic activities. Another was the Sunday Evening Supper Club, which would host such prominent speakers as William Jennings Bryan and Jane Addams.
Referendums were held in 1894 and 1897 over whether Wilmette should seek to be annexed by neighboring Evanston. Proponents wanted to take advantage of Evanston's then superior fire, police, and water services, as well as Evanston Township High School. One annexation referendum lost by a vote of 168 to 165; three others also failed. Following the result of these votes, the village improved its own services. Among the efforts at improving the village's services was the construction of a central fire station in 1899. Paving of the village streets with specially made bricks began in earnest at this time, as well. New Trier High School, built in Winnetka but also drawing students from Wilmette, was opened in 1901.
A series of new schools were built in the nineties to serve Wilmette's growing community. In 1892 an eight-classroom brick school building was built to house Central School, replacing the previous one-room structure. Logan school was opened in 1893 on Kline Street as a one-room school house. Its building would subsequently be expanded. Today, McKenzie Elementary School stands at the former site of Logan School.