October 6, 1988 public meeting about the proposed annexation.
In October 1988, Lake Forest City Council voted to annex Conway Farms, a 682-acre tract of land straddling Rte. 60. By extending its western boundary to the tollway, Lake Forest encompassed new, large-scale commercial and residential developments. Conway Park is home to several international corporate headquarters, as well as the Chicago Bears and Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. South of Route 60, offices, cluster housing and townhomes joined the Conway Farms Golf Club.The name stems back to John Conway, an early area settler whose dairy farm straddled Conway Road. In the 1950s, Robert D. Stuart Jr., Augustin and Margaret Hart, James Getz, and Gordon Smith formed a partnership and began acquiring properties in the area as a long-term investment; Marshall Field IV, who owned land north of Route 60, joined them as well. Forward-thinking, they saw the likelihood that adding this territory in the future would help Lake Forest to control development on its borders and diversify the tax base.
