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Born as a railroad town named Calumet Junction, Kensington grew up where theIllinois Centraland Michigan Centralrailroadsconnected in 1852. The town grew slowly until, by 1880, 400German,Irish, Scandinavian, andYankeeresidents lived there, servicing the railroads and the population of farmers in the vicinity. Despite the presence of churches, stores, and schools, Kensington became notorious for itssaloons, leading theDutchin neighboringRoselandto nickname it “Bumtown.”

When George M. Pullman announced in 1880 that his model town would be built just north of Kensington, the small settlement boomed.Boardinghouses, taverns, and small stores opened to serve the construction crews and visitors to the site who, initially, took the train to Kensington and walked toPullman. This close relationship between the two communities remained strong. Pullman workers lived in Kensington; Kensington businessmen lived in Pullman. Pullman workers relaxed in Kensington taverns and billiard halls; Kensington saloonkeepers delivered beer in Pullman. Kensington even figured prominently in thePullman Strike. Its EicheTurn- vereinserved as strike headquarters and its largest store, Secord and Hopkins, owned by ChicagoMayorJohn P. Hopkins, offered credit and support to strikers and their families.

Changes in Pullman hiring policies and the opening of Illinois Terra Cotta broughtItaliansto Kensington, which gradually became a center ofSouth SideItalian life. Employment bureaus, travel agencies, andgrocery storesreflected the regional diversity within the Italian community. Nowhere was that diversity more apparent than in the three altars in San Antonio de PaduaRoman CatholicChurch. The first altar, like the church itself, was named for the patron saint selected by the Venetians; the second was named for San Alessandro for the Calabrese; and the third named for the Virgin of the Rosary for the Sicilians.

WhenUniversity of Chicagosociologists divided the city into community areas, they split Kensington amongWest Pullman, Roseland, andRiverdale. Roseland's Michigan Avenue business district grew south into Kensington's. Its Italian andPolishpopulations linked it socially to Pullman's ethnic communities. By the 1960s, Kensington's unique identity was sustained primarily by the taverns that still lined its main streets, the Kensington police station, and St. Anthony's.

As industries began to close in the 1960s and 1970s, Kensington's population also began to change.MexicansandAfrican Americansreturned for the first time since the 1920s and, by the 1980s, African Americans came to dominate the community. The 5th District police station moved away, as did many of the stores along Michigan Avenue and 115th Street. The Salem Baptist Church located in the former St. Salomea building. In 1998, the last remnant of Kensington's nineteenth-century identity gave way as well. Led by members of Salem Baptist Church, precincts in what had once been Kensington voted themselves dry. As Chicago papers heralded what they called the Roselanders' victory, few appreciated that the residents of Kensington had finally achieved what the Roselanders had been hoping for for over a century. “Bumtown” was no more.

Janice L. Reiff