What is the history of Barrington Hills, Illinois?
The rich farmland and abundant water supplies attracted settlers Jesse Miller and William Van Orsdal in 1834. In the early 1840s other farm families arrived, many of whom were German, English, and Irish immigrants, and formed a town near present-day Sutton Road and Illinois Route 68. Initially called Miller’s Grove, the community was later named Barrington Center. Farmers brought their crops to nearby markets on the Fox River in East Dundee, IllinoisEast Dundee. Dairy farmers supported a cheese factory in the late nineteenth century. Barrington Center Church (used by a Korean Wesleyan church in the beginning of the twenty-first century) was built in 1853 and used as an army recruiting station during the Civil War. Industry came to the area for a short period in the 1890s, when American Malleable Iron Company built a plant on the northern fringe of Barrington Hills along U.S. Highway 14. The company hired hundreds of Hungarian workers and constructed a residential community for their wo
