History and Preservation
The City of Lake Forest, incorporated as a City under a charter
granted by the Illinois State Legislature in 1861, was primarily
founded to support the establishment of church-related educational
institutions. Lake Forest's claim to historic distinction however,
rests on many factors that are both physical and social.
Present-day Lake Forest is physically distinctive not only because
of its picturesque street plan, but because of the early date when it
was platted. Of the suburban communities in America that were planned
in the nineteenth century, according to the picturesque principles
worked out for English gardens and American rural cemeteries and
parks, Lake Forest is one of the very earliest, coming only five years
after the first such town in America, Llewellyn Park, New Jersey, was
founded in 1852. The Lake Forest plan, platted in 1857, is notable
because its architect, the landscape gardener Almerin Hotchkiss, went
on to create such other important picturesque places in the Midwest
such as Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. The general concept
reflected in the Hotchkiss plan is of the city in a park, with its
streets laid out in an organic manner that takes into account such
natural features as the ravines and lake bluffs, instead of forcing
the street plan into a formal gridiron plan.
Lake Forest is equally famous for the many notable persons who
chose to make their permanent or summer homes there. By World War I,
the list of property owners in Lake Forest read like a Who's Who
of the rich and famous in Chicago. In addition, Lake Forest is also
noted for the quality and character of its architecture whether
erected for residential, religious, educational or public purposes.
Although the names of some of the earliest architects working for Lake
Forest clients are still unknown, it is probable they were among the
foremost of their profession practicing in Chicago. One of the
earliest architect who we know to have worked in Lake Forest was Henry
Ives Cobb, who built his estate in Lake Forest in 1890. Other noted
Lake Forest resident architects were Charles Frost and Howard Van
Doren Shaw, both of whom also maintained estates. Even such well-known
eastern architects as James Gamble Rogers and Charles Platt were
called upon to design for Lake Forest clients. In short, the quality
of the architecture in Lake Forest was very high, and the quality of
its construction equally so.
It is these same factors that give Lake Forest its historical
significance, that also make the estate areas of residential Lake
Forest historically and visually distinctive. In addition, it was the
concentration in Lake Forest, probably more so than in any other
community west of the Hudson River, of a vast assemblage of impressive
estates laid out by important architects for some of most influential
families of Chicago that makes both Lake Forest and its estates
especially significant. Coupled with its unusual location high on the
bluffs overlooking an inland sea, and its equally rare early
picturesque plan, Lake Forest is a unique place of special historical
and physical distinction.
More about Historic
Preservation in Lake Forest. Mayors of Lake Forest
Beginning in 1861 with the election of Harvey M.
Thompson through the current Mayor, Lake Forest has been
served by dedicated individuals, which are listed in this
Guide of Lake Forest
Mayors
 (141k - 8 pages). |
