| Brookfield (formerly
Grossdale) is a village in Cook County, Illinois, 13
miles west of Chicago. The population was 19,085 at
the 2000 census. It is home to the world-famous Brookfield
Zoo.
Settlement of the village dates
to 1889 when Samuel Eberly Gross, a Chicago lawyer,
began selling building lots platted from farms and woodlands
he had acquired along both sides of the Chicago, Burlington
& Quincy Railroad line, which provided passenger
and freight service between Chicago and Aurora, Illinois.
"Grossdale," as his
development was originally called, offered suburban
living at prices affordable to working-class families.
Prospective buyers were enticed with free train rides,
brass bands, picnic lunches, and an inevitable sales
pitch.
The first building Gross erected
in the new subdivision was a train station. (In 1981,
the station was moved across the tracks and now houses
the Brookfield Historical Society. It is on the National
Register of Historic Places.) Gross later added the
subdivisions of Hollywood (1893) and West Grossdale
(1895), each with its own train station. Residents voted
to incorporate as the village of Grossdale in 1893.
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