| Many of the city's remaining historic single-family
homes are found within walking distance of Bridge Street, the courthouse
and Union Hall. It was resident Earl Adams who started it all. He
built his cabin on Courthouse Hill on the south side of town in
1833. One year later, Lyman and Burr Bristol set up residency in
neighboring Bristol, north of the river. When the county of Kendall
was formed in 1841, Yorkville was chosen as the county seat. After
a 13-year period in which the Village of Oswego claimed that honor,
voters chose to relocate the county government in 1859 to a more
centralized location. Yorkville was chosen for that honor and the
new courthouse was completed in 1864. Replaced in 1997 with a new
courthouse on the north side of the city, the 1864 building, majestic
in nature, still stands today and is used by the Kendall County
Forest Preserve and other organizations. Yorkville was no exception
to the railroad boom.
Development began and businesses sprang up in 1870 along the tracks
and included Squire Dingee’s pickle factory, the Yorkville
Ice Cream Company and Rehbehn Brothers button factory. A few of
those buildings are still remaining today. The Chapel on the Green,
located in Yorkville, is the oldest church in Kendall County.The
Village of Yorkville existed as two towns, one north of the river
and the other south of the Fox River, with separate governments,
for more than 100 years. In 1957 both towns had their own identity—Bristol
to the north and the United City of Yorkville to the south. As a
result, Ellsworth Windett became Yorkville’s first mayor.
As a part of the separation the residents of both towns agreed to
a uniform school district. It was in the same year that high school
classes began in the downtown area at the northeast corner of Van
Emmon and Bridge Streets.
In 1888 a two-story brick school building on West Center Street
was constructed. After the construction of Circle Center School
in 1968, the two-story building was closed and the space was rented
by the Yorkville School District to neighboring Waubonsee Community
College. Due to rising enrollment in the early 1970s the school
was reopened and renamed as Parkview School. |
