| Naperville
is an affluent city in the Chicago metropolitan area
in Illinois in the United States, voted the second and
third best place to live in the United States by Money
Magazine in 2006 and 2008 respectively. As of the 2000
census, the city had a total population of 128,358,
and the population was estimated at 147,779 in 2006.
Naperville
is the fifth largest city in the state, behind Chicago,
neighboring Aurora, Rockford, and Joliet. Approximately
100,000 "Napervillians" live in DuPage County,
while about 50,000 reside in Will County.
Once
a quaint farming town,[5] Naperville has evolved into
a wealthy city due in part to a massive migration of
professionals in the 1990s seeking jobs and globally
renowned public schools.[6] This can be seen in part
by the enormous growth of high-tech companies such as
Tellabs, Alcatel-Lucent and the BP North American Chemical
Headquarters, all located in Naperville. U.S. News and
World Report recently ranked both Naperville School
District 203 high schools among the top 3 percent of
high schools in the country.[7] Also, District 204's
Neuqua Valley High School and Waubonsie Valley High
School won the Grammy Gold Signature School award in
2005 and 2007 respectively, ranking them top in the
nation for a music program in a high school.
In
July 1831, Joseph Naper arrived at the banks of the
DuPage River with his family and friends to found what
would be known as Naper's Settlement. Among those original
settlers were Naper's wife Almeda Landon, his brother
John with wife Betsy Goff, his sister Amy with husband
John Murray, and his mother Sarah. Their arrival followed
a nearly two-month voyage across three Great Lakes in
the Naper brothers' schooner, the Telegraph. Also on
that journey were several families who remained in the
still raw settlement that would become Chicago, including
that of Dexter Graves who is memorialized in Graceland
Cemetery by a well-known Loredo Taft statue.
By
1832, over one hundred settlers had arrived at Naper's
Settlement. These settlers were temporarily displaced
to Fort Dearborn for protection from an anticipated
attack by the Sauk tribe. Fort Payne was built at Naper's
Settlement, the settlers returned and the attack never
materialized. The Pre-Emption House was constructed
in 1834, as the Settlement became a stage-coach stop
on the road from Chicago to Galena. Reconstructions
of Fort Payne and the Pre-Emption House stand as part
of Naper Settlement, which was first established by
the Naperville Heritage Society and the Naperville Park
District in 1969 to preserve some of the community's
oldest buildings.[8] After DuPage County was split from
Cook County in 1839, Naper's Settlement became the DuPage
county seat, a distinction it held until 1868. Naper's
Settlement was incorporated as the Village of Naperville
in 1857, at which time it had a population of 2,000.
Reincorporation as a city occurred in 1890. A predominantly
rural community for most of its existence, Naperville
experienced a population explosion, starting in the
1960s, but largely during the 1980s and 1990s following
the construction of the East-West Tollway (now known
as the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway) and North-South
tollways. In the past two decades, it has nearly quadrupled
in size as Chicagoland's urban sprawl brought corporations,
jobs, and wealth to the area.
On
April 26, 1946, Naperville was the site of one of the
worst train accidents in Chicagoland history. Two Chicago,
Burlington and Quincy Railroad trains, the Advance Flyer
and the Exposition Flyer, collided 'head to tail' on
a single track just west of the Loomis Street grade
crossing. The accident killed 45 and injured more than
1000 residents. This event is commemorated in a metal
inlay map of Naperville on the southeast corner of Nichols
Library's sidewalk area.[9] Forty acres once housed
Nike Site C-70 in Naperville, Illinois. It has since
been "Divided into an office park and Nike Park,
part of the Naperville Park District, with soccer, softball
and Little League fields. It is located at the south-east
corner of Mill Street and Diehl Road in northern Naperville.
The
March 2006 issue of Chicago magazine cites a mid-1970s
decision to make and keep all parking in downtown Naperville
free in order to keep downtown Naperville "alive"
in the face of competition with Fox Valley Mall in Aurora
and the subsequent sprawl of strip shopping malls. Existing
parking meters were taken down, parking in garages built
in the 1980s and 1990s is free, and parking is still
available on major thoroughfares during non-peak hours.[8]
Naperville marked the 175th anniversary of its 1831
founding in 2006. The anniversary events included a
series of celebrations, concerts and a balloon parade. |
