John T. McCutcheon (1870-1949) was a long-time editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune. His career included a Pulitzer Prize (1932) and ground-breaking efforts for his illustrations.
A world traveler, he was in Europe covering World War I before the U.S. entered and is thought to be the first non-combatant to fly over a combat zone in 1914. He was with Commodore Dewey when the Spanish-American War erupted. He also covered the Boer War in Africa, where he traveled extensively. He sketched leading figures such as Pancho Villa and Theodore Roosevelt, and covered the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 with his drawings.
McCutcheon's cartoon "Injun Summer" ran in the Chicago Tribune every year in early October from 1907 to 1992. A product of its time, it relates a tale of Native Americans who once lived in the area but had become just a distant memory, revived only by the last gasps of summer heat during the early parts of autumn.
McCutcheon's wife was Evelyn Shaw, daughter of architect Howard Van Doren Shaw. In Lake Forest, they lived on Illinois Road on part of the Aldis Compound at 194 East Illinois Road, and later adjacent to the Ragdale property at 1272 Green Bay Road.