Glenview Village

Cook County, Illinois

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Glenview Village Hall is located at 2500 East Lake Avenue, Glenview, IL 60026; phone: 847-904-4370.

Until the late 1800s, what is present-day Glenview [†] was an area of natural prairie, wetlands, and oak woodlands. This natural environment would inspire one of the nation's foremost naturalist of the time, Robert Kennicott.

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Kennicott was an American naturalist who considered the area that would later become Glenview his home. He spent most of his youth outdoors, collecting plants and animals on his father's large land holding. This area would later become known as "The Grove:' Mr. Kennicott's reputation as a diligent and thorough naturalist led to a request by Northwestern University to help create a museum of natural history of the area, which resulted in the founding of the Chicago Academy of Sciences.

Glenview was incorporated as a village in 1899 with Hugh Burnham (nephew of the famous Chicago Urban Designer and Architect Daniel Burnham) as its first village president. At this time, the village had an adult population of 325. Its first governing board installed wooden planked sidewalks and gas streetlights on Waukegan Road. The gravel streets were not paved until the 1920s. The Village remained primarily a farming community, and as late as 1930, it had fewer than 2,000 residents.

Nationally, Glenview is known for its aviation history. Beginning in 1923, Naval Reserve Air Base, Great Lakes, Illinois, was commissioned in Northeastern Illinois. It operated a number of seaplanes from the shore facilities of nearby Lake Michigan. By 1929, the Curtiss-Reynolds Airport was built in Glenview by the Curtiss Flying Service, a subsidiary of the Curtiss Corporation established by aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss. In 1937, Rear Admiral John Downes, USN, Commandant, Ninth Naval District, recommended that the Naval Reserve Air Base be moved to the Curtiss=Reynolds Airport. With the outbreak of World War II in 1941, the Naval Reserve Air Base Chicago located in Glenview became a center for the Navy's expanded flight training program and primary training command. This expansion required the purchase of an additional 570 acres adjacent to the field, west of Shermer Road and south of old Lake Avenue, and led to the establishment of the Glenview Naval Air Station (GNAS).

Village of Glenview Comprehensive Plan, 2017, www.glenview.il.us, accessed December, 2020.


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