Oak Brook was
incorporated as a Village in 1958, due in large part
to the efforts of Paul Butler, a prominent civic leader
and landowner whose father had first moved to the vicinity
in 1898 and opened a dairy farm shortly thereafter.
Prior to incorporation, the name Oak Brook was used
by local residents to distinguish their community from
neighboring Hinsdale and Elmhurst, going back to the
founding of the Oak Brook Civic Association almost two
decades earlier.
The original boundaries were
smaller than the present extent of the Village, but
a considerable amount of land was acquired soon after
the founding of the Village, including the land that
is now the site of the Oak Brook Center shopping mall,
which opened in 1962.
Paul Butler's interest in sport
was reflected in the Oak Brook Sports Core, which features
polo fields, a golf course (which was at one time the
venue for the Western Open), swimming and tennis facilities,
and other recreational facilities not commonly found
in a village of this size.[3]
In October 2009, the employees
of the Oak Brook Public Library invited the Teamsters
to represent them.[4]
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