What is the history of La Grange, Illinois?

The name La Grange is French languageFrench for "The Barn." Incorporated on June 11, 1879, the Village of La Grange was the dream of Franklin Dwight Cossitt, born in Granby, Connecticut and raised in Tennessee, who moved to Chicago in 1862 and built a successful wholesale grocery business. In 1870, Cossitt purchased several hundred acres of farmland in Lyons Township, IllinoisLyons Township, along the Chicago-Dixon Road, known today as Ogden Avenue (U.S. Highway 34). Ogden Avenue was also referred as the "Old Plank Road". Planks were often stolen by settlers to be used as building material which made travling very bumpy. When the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad came to town La Grange was a milk stop called Hazel Glen. A few miles to the south through present day Willow Springs the Illinois & Michigan Canal had emerged as a major shipping corridor, connecting Chicago and the Great Lakes with the Illinois RiverIllinois and Mississippi Rivers. Cossitt set out to build the ideal ...  more