Evanston, Home sweet Home

Evanston, Illinois, best known as the home of Northwestern University, is a suburb of Chicago, IL., with a rich history of being an independent city. It was named for John Evans, founder of Northwestern University, in 1857 and was formally incorporated as a town on December 29, 1863, voters elected to organize as a city in 1892.

Today the city is host to ten elementary schools (through fifth grade), three middle schools (grades 6 through 8), two magnet schools (K through 8) and three special schools or centers.

Evanston is served by six CTA bus routes and four Pace bus routes. The CTA’s Purple Line, part of the Chicago 'L’ system, runs through Evanston as does the CTA’s Yellow Line though it only stops at Howard. Metra’s Union Pacific/North Line also serves Evanston.

Since the days when Evanston was home of one of the first Marshall Field’s and Sears stores in suburbia Evanston remains an important shopping destination for the north suburbs and North Side of Chicago. From its 3 blocks of small, interesting shops called Main Street Station to its Dempster Street with over 60 small hip businesses to its Downtown area where over 300 businesses, three traditional low-rise shopping areas, an 18-screen movie theatre, and over 85 restaurants Evanston remains a one stop for shopping, entertainment and food. One of the secrets of Evanston is that it is a popular filming locale. As of December 2008 it is listed as a filming location for 65 different films, notably those of John Hughes. Treasured not only for its variety of housing and commercial districts but for its easy access to Chicago.

Because of its rich historic past Evanston is also a great stop for tourist, some of the point of interest include:

Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard house, who was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth (Prohibition) and Nineteenth (Women Suffrage) Amendments to the United States Constitution, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965. Willard bequeathed the house to the Temperance Union, which in 1900 moved its headquarters from Chicago to the house.

The historic Grosse Point Light residents successfully lobbied the federal government for a lighthouse following several shipping disasters near Evanston, construction was completed in 1873. The lighthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 8, 1976. On January 20 1999, the lighthouse was designated a National Historic Landmark.

Northwestern University, Charles A. Brown house built in 1905 by Frank Lloyd Wright, Oakton Historic District, placed on the National Historic Landmark list on 5/23/05, Charles Gates Dawes house built in 1894 by Robert Sheppard – H. Edwards Ficken, and the Frederick B Carter, Jr. House, built by American architect and landscape architect Walter Burley Griffin and added to National Historic List in 1974.