O'Neill's Hardware: Everything But the Kitchen Sink

In 1868, Joseph O'Neill opened Lake Forest’s first hardware store, O’Neill’s Hardware. First located on Western Avenue near the current location of Gerhard’s, sales for the initial $1,000 worth of sto...

Deerpath Theatre: 50+ Years of Movies in Town

Step into the Lake Forest arcade at 272 E. Deerpath, just a few storefronts east of Bank Lane, and it’s the former site of the Deerpath Theatre, a popular North Shore entertainment stop for decades. T...

First Deerpath Inn: From Boarding House to School to Hotel

The Deer Path Inn had its beginnings as a private home on Illinois Road. The original building was constructed in 1869 as a home for the Colonel William Sage Johnston family. In the 1890s, the family...

DeLuxe Theatre: Lake Forest's First Movie House

Joseph O'Neill opened Lake Forest’s first motion picture house on Westminster in 1912, next to the new location of his hardware store. The Lake Forest City Council spent the next six years regulating...

Murrie Blacksmith Shop: Horses Shod with Care and Neatness

After years as an employee in various blacksmith shops, Allen Murrie went into business for himself in 1903, taking over from E. V. Hough. For a time he operated out of Murphy’s Livery, in a natural m...

"The most popular place in town": Monahan Chocolate Shop

Location: 662 North Western Avenue, Lake Forest

 Edward J. Monahan opened the Monahan Chocolate Shop on Western Avenue in 1906, one of the first tenants in the newly completed Anderson Building. He drew on previous experience in the dairy indu...

Griffith Grant & Lackie Realtors: Growing and Building with Lake Forest

John Griffith opened his real estate business in 1903. He was an active player in the development of estates in the area and Market Square. His firm moved to Market Square when it was built and became...

White's Variety Store: A Lake Bluff Fixture

Ralph White was a well-respected and beloved Lake Bluff businessman. He was born in 1908 on a cotton farm in Arkansas. After graduating from the University of Arkansas, White operated several Kresge S...

Max Cohn's Centrella Food Store

For more than half a century, Max Cohn’s grocery store was a key Lake Forest institution, providing residents with groceries seven days a week, 362 days a year. From 1913 to 1968, his small grocery wa...

Hansen's Children's Shop

Hansen’s Children’s Shop was a clothing store for children and infants run for nearly 50 years by George and Frances Hansen. Store employee Cynthia Prais Dietz created the diorama pictured here in the...

A Good Place to Get Good Things To Eat: C. T. Gunn Groceries

Scottish immigrant Charles T. Gunn arrived in Lake Forest in 1889, at age 16. He found a job clerking in James Anderson’s store, a starting place for many local Scots. Gunn and S. C. Orr opened their...

John Griffith: Developing Lake Forest

John Griffith opened his Lake Forest business in 1903 which grew to include real estate, insurance and mortgages. Born in North Wales, he came to Chicago in 1888 and within five years was in Lake Fore...

Knauz Autopark

In 1930, Karl Knauz – German immigrant and Lake Forest chauffeur – bet his life savings on reviving a failed gas station at Woodland Road and Western Avenue. With a mechanical background and connectio...

Early Business in West Lake Forest

In 1891 postmaster Eli A. Frantz erected a two-story commercial building near Waukegan and Everett, with a general store on the first floor.

Lake Forest Flowers: Growing with the Community

The origins of this business date all the way back to the earliest days of Lake Forest. Frank Calvert was born in Scotland in 1830 and immigrated to Chicago as a young man. He was one of the earliest...

Everett Inn

In keeping with the community’s agricultural character, the Everett Inn, a farmstand and roadside restaurant, opened in the 1920s on the west side of Waukegan at Everett.

Everett Garage

Ed, Adolph and Walter Loeffer opened the Everett Garage on Waukegan south of Everett in 1921. They fixed both automobiles and farm equipment, sold gas for about 28 cents a gallon, and shared their bui...

Samuel Dent: Building Up Lake Forest

Samuel Dent was born around 1835 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Enslaved from birth, he labored as a butler in home of Edmond Elliot. Dent liberated himself in April 1862 when the 19th Illinois Infantry advan...

Green Tree Inn

In 1922, the old Lancaster house, on property purchased by Louis F. Swift, was moved to 1101 S. Waukegan Road, remodeled, and converted into the Green Tree Inn. Proprietor Ambrose J. Montavon served c...

Market Square Through the Decades

It was in the 1920s that Market Square (designed in 1916) truly grew into the heart of Lake Forest. The city began to install the large Christmas tree in the greensward, rather than at Triangle Park,...

Market Square: Heralding a New Era in Urban Planning

At its beginnings, Market Square broke new ground. In 1916, as the nation’s first artfully designed shopping center, it linked pedestrian, automobile, and train, and heralded a new era in urban planni...

Western Avenue Before Market Square

It’s hard to imagine Lake Forest without Market Square as a focal point, but during the city’s first 50 years, the business district was little more than an afterthought. The 1857 town plat, with its...

Giving Lake Forest What She Wants: Marshall Field & Co.

The first anchor tenant in Market Square was the First National Bank of Lake Forest. It was important for the trustees to land the bank to quiet concerns about foot traffic in the west end of Howard V...

Garnett's: Generations of Dry Goods in Market Square

J. B. Garnett & Co. was a dry goods and department store founded in 1919 in Highland Park by Joseph Garnett and later run by his son James. In August 1921 Garnett opened another branch in Market Squar...

Sloan’s Repair Shop and the Sloan Family

Location: Bank Lane between Deerpath and Illinois

Clifford and Mollie Sloan moved to Lake Forest between 1904 and 1910, residing in the community for nearly 30 years. Both born in Georgia, they were married in Chicago in 1904. Clifford M. Sloan...

The Matthews Enterprise: Black-Owned Businesses in Early Lake Forest

Locations: Western Avenue across from the train station and 635 East Illinois Road

According to his daughter Harriet, in 1886 Julian Matthews arrived in Lake Forest “in a boxcar full of fine Virginia horseflesh.” Matthews was born enslaved in Virginia in 1863. By the 1880s, he was l...

Lake Forest Tailors and Just Nice Things

John Foster ran Lake Forest Tailors at 730 N Western Avenue. Foster had jazz playing in the shop and people stopped in, just to chat, listen to jazz, and learn from him. He was recognized as a great f...

Peter and Anna Williams

Peter Williams (1834-1917) was one of the earliest African Americans to settle in Lake Forest, coming north from enslavement in Alabama. He described his life experiences in an 1896 program at the Fir...

Building Opportunity

Deeply Rooted and Rising High: African American Experiences in Lake Forest

Since its beginnings, Lake Forest has benefited economically from its deeply rooted African American community. The town’s system of landed estates depended upon the expertise of a skilled service sta...

Samuel Dent

Samuel Dent was born enslaved around 1835 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. A butler in home of Edmond Elliot, he escaped in April 1862 when the 19th Illinois Infantry advanced on Decatur and Tuscumbia. Dent app...

Virginia Fiester Frederick: Forging a Path for Women

Virginia Fiester Frederick was a fashion designer who outfitted hundreds of North Shore women and a politician who served both Lake Forest and the state of Illinois.Born Virginia Heise in 1916, she gr...

Lake Forest Triples in Size: Everett Annexation, 1926

By the 1920s, country places had succeeded family farms as the dominant feature west of Lake Forest, and the owners began to wonder about the future of their property investments. Who would take care...

Serving Our Country: Montague Rasmussen

Montague Reid Rasmussen was a key figure in Lake Forest, Illinois, particularly known for his contributions to veterans' affairs. He was the founding commander of the Lake Forest American Legion McKin...