Half Day is a former unincorporated town inLake County,Illinois, in the state's northeastern region. It is about 30 miles (48 km) north of downtown Chicago viaMilwaukee Avenue.
The town was forcibly annexed by the village ofVernon Hills in 1993. The following month, the village ofLincolnshire also attempted to annex a portion of Half Day. The two villages entered a legal battle, filing lawsuits against each other.[1] Eventually, this resulted in the Vernon Hills annexation being approved and Lincolnshire's being denied.[2]
Parts of area infrastructure are still named for the original unincorporated community. The portion ofIllinois Route 22 that passes through is named Half Day Road. Half Day School, originally established in 1839 and temporarily closed in the early 1980s after declining enrollment, was modernized and reopened in 1992; it currently serves third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students and is part ofLincolnshire-Prairie View School District 103.
Half Day appeared in a news article in 1952 when then Illinois GovernorAdlai Stevenson flew there to vote in the presidential election (Stevenson was a candidate the same year).[3]
Half Day was named for Aptakisic, a localPotawatomi chief who allied himself with White settlers during theBlack Hawk War.[4][5] The chief's name meant "sun at the meridian" or "half day". After hisremoval to the vicinity ofElmont, Kansas after the1833 Treaty of Chicago, settlers applied his name first to an inn, then to the unincorporated town.[4]
While Aptakisic was the source of Half Day's name, local legends arose offeringfolk etymologies for the town. One still repeated today is that when the settlement was named, it was a half-day's distance fromChicago by horse and carriage.[4] Another, which circulated in the early twentieth century, stated that a chief named "Hefda," transcribed by acartographer as "Half Day", was the source.[6][4][7] Neither story is true.[8]
Municipalities and communities ofLake County, Illinois,United States | ||
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| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |
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