| |
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.[8]
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.[8]
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.[10] |
