Evanston Township | |
|---|---|
 The former boundaries of Evanston Township | |
 Flag  Seal | |
  Evanston Township | |
| Coordinates:42°02′47″N87°41′40″W / 42.04639°N 87.69444°W /42.04639; -87.69444 | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Illinois |
| County | Cook |
| Created | 1850 |
| Elevation | 614 ft (187 m) |
| Population (2010) | |
• Total | 74,486 |
| Time zone | UTC-6 (CST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (CST) |
Evanston Township was acivil township inCook County,Illinois, United States from 1857 until 2014, when it was dissolved. At the time it was dissolved, its boundaries werecoterminous with the city ofEvanston, and the population at the2010 census was 74,486.[1]
The township history includes that of two townships that were both originally namedRidgeville Township and was later renamed Evanston Township.
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Loyola professor Patricia Melvin-Mooney states that a small community of German and Luxembourger farmers settled near the present-day intersection of Ridge andDevon Avenue in the 1830s, and the community became known asRidgeville.[2] Frances Willard in her 1891 history of Evanston associated the name with a log cabin, built in approximately 1835,[3] southwest of what became Evanston, by former Major Edward Henry Mulford, the first jeweler in the area.[4] The community was within the large and undefined voting district, north of the then-existing Chicago city limits, known as Gross Point.[3]
Ridgeville Township came into existence in April 1850, with its first elections held on April 2, 1850. Some early records use the name Ridgevill for the township.[5]: 342
On April 26, 1850, the name of the Gross Point post office was changed to Ridgeville.[3] The mail was received at Mulford's cabin, which had expanded to become a tavern[4] known as Ten-Mile House for its distance from Chicago on the Green Bay stage route.[3]
Ridgeville Township was organized as acivil townshipin approximately what are now theLakeview,Uptown,Edgewater, andRogers Park neighborhoods ofChicago, and also part of what is nowEvanston,[citation needed] with the southern border in theIrving Park area[6]at Irving Park Avenue bordering the currentGraceland Cemetery,[citation needed] and the northern border at what is nowCentral Street in Evanston, which at that time marked the southern boundary of land reserved toArchange Ouilmette. The western boundary was Western Avenue, and the eastern boundary was Lake Michigan.[7] In an election held at the house of George Reeley, the citizens elected Edward Murphy as the first township supervisor, and Philip Rogers as assessor.[8] Gross Point voting district ceased to exist.[3][9] Later elected officials included Chicagoan Conrad Sulzer, the first known European settler in the Ravenswood area, as township collector,[10] and John Anderson, of what would later be calledAndersonville, as highway commissioner.[7]
As of the 1850 census the population was only 441.[11][12] In the 1851 referendum on the Illinois banking law, only 19 voters came to the polls in Ridgeville Township.[8]: 144
In 1853, the Board of Trustees ofNorthwestern University purchased 380 acres (1.5 km2) in the northern part of the township and proceeded to plat around the university campus a village, which, in 1854, they namedEvanston after one of their leaders. The founding of the university and the extension of a railroad line that served it spurred rapid development in the Evanston community.[8] In February 1855, thePost Office Department changed the name of the post office from Ridgeville to Evanston.[3]
An Act of the Illinois General Assembly, on February 15, 1857, changed the township's name toEvanston Township, and redefined its boundaries.[13]: 16 The township was split;[3]: 109 and, for a short time, expanded to the north.[8]: 251 The portion southof Devon Avenue[citation needed] becameLake View Township, and eventually part of Chicago. The part to the north remained as the renamed Evanston Township, and had added to it Archange Ouilmette's reservation on the north; but that reservation was detached and put intoNew Trier Township in 1859.[8]: 251
A new Ridgeville Township was created by an enabling act approved on May 23, 1877, and amended on May 15, 1903; the new township wascoterminous the city limits ofEvanston, leaving the remainder of Evanston Township outside the City of Evanston.[13]: 17 Ridgeville Township ceased to exist after various annexations by the City of Evanston, concluding in 1916.[citation needed] Eventually this newer Ridgeville Township came itself be named Evanston Township.[14]
Following special legislation enacted by theIllinois General Assembly in 2013, the electors of Evanston Township voted 5,065 to 2,889 on March 18, 2014, to abolish the township. On May 1, 2014, the city of Evanston assumed the duties and obligations of Evanston Township.[15] Only twice before in Illinois history, and not since 1932, had a township been dissolved bypublic referendum.[16]
For a while the name Ridgeville was used for a street running along a north–south sand ridge in Rogers Park; the street was later renamed Paulina.[citation needed] Apark district in the south part of Evanston retains the name Ridgeville.[17]
In 1855, John Anderson was elected highway commissioner of Ridgeville. The northern section of Ridgeville took the name of Evanston in 1857.
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