| Riverside is
an affluent suburban village in Cook County, Illinois,
a significant portion of which is included in Riverside
Landscape Architecture District. The population was
8,895 at the 2000 census. It is a suburb of Chicago,
located roughly 9 miles west of downtown Chicago and
2 miles outside city limits.
Riverside is arguably one of
the first planned communities in the United States,
designed in 1869 by Frederick Law Olmsted. The village
was incorporated in 1875. The Riverside Landscape Architecture
District, an area bounded by 26th St., Harlem and Ogden
Aves., the Des Plaines River, and Forbes Rd., was designated
a National Historic Landmark in 1970.
In 1863 the Chicago, Burlington
and Quincy Railroad was built heading southwest from
downtown Chicago to Quincy, Illinois, passing through
what is now the Near West Suburban area of Chicago in
a western-southwestern direction. This new access to
transportation and commerce brought about a significant
housing and construction boom in what was once farmland
far from the bustle of the city of Chicago. In 1868,
an eastern businessman named Emery E. Childs brought
together a group of associates to form the Riverside
Improvement Company with the intent of purchasing and
investing in land in the form of residential development.
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