Lake Forest-Lake Bluff History Museum

A Smoother Commute: Tollway Opens Through Lake County

Exit from Lake Forest Oasis, looking south, 1970. Kaufmann and Fabry, Toll road (Tollway), Folder 273, Sheet 4, CPC_01_C_0273_004, Chicago - Photographic Images of Change, University of Illinois at Chicago. Library. Special Collections Department.

Lake Forest Oasis, 1959. Kaufmann and Fabry, Toll road (Tollway), Folder 280, Sheet 1, CPC_01_C_0280_001, Chicago - Photographic Images of Change, University of Illinois at Chicago. Library. Special Collections Department.

Chicago Tribune, August 28, 1958.

Following the postwar suburban boom, earlier highways proved inadequate for 1950s drivers. The Tri-State Tollway, opened in 1958, provided a bypass around the gridlock of Chicago, as well as another way for Lake Foresters to commute to jobs in the city.

Residents and city planners alike began to see I-94 as a natural western border for the community, and land annexations in 1957 and 1988 would accomplish this goal.

Decades later, in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, the Tollway corridor boomed with development, with office complexes, corporate headquarters, hotels, and retailers like CostCo flocking near the Route 60 exit.