Buffalo Grove
—  Village  —
Coordinates: 42°9′59″N 87°57′48″W / 42.16639°N 87.96333°W / 42.16639; -87.96333Coordinates: 42°9′59″N 87°57′48″W / 42.16639°N 87.96333°W / 42.16639; -87.96333
Country	United States
State	Illinois
County	Cook and Lake
Townships	Wheeling and Vernon
Incorporated	1958
Government
• Type	Council-manager
• President	Jeff Braiman
Area
• Total	9.2 sq mi (24 km2)
Population
• Total	45,000
• Density	4,900/sq mi (1,900/km2)
	Up 17.79% from 1990
Standard of living
• Per capita income	$49,794 (median: $83,545)
• Home value	$354,777 (2000) (median: $360,000)
ZIP code(s)	60089
Area code(s)	847 and 224
Geocode	09447
Website	www.vbg.org

Buffalo Grove is an affluent village located in the northern suburbs of Chicago, and in Cook and Lake counties in Illinois, United States. The town was named for Buffalo Creek, which was itself named for bison bones found in the area.

As of the 2000 census, the village population was 42,909. As of May 2007, signs welcoming visitors to Buffalo Grove show a population of 43,195. In July 2009, Buffalo Grove was listed at No. 65 on Money "best places to live" list.^[2] The village is also home to two different annual festivals, one being the Buffalo Grove Days held in September and an Arts Festival held in mid July. Throughout the village, there are a number of various business parks. The village president is currently Jeffrey Braiman. Most of the village is located within the 10th Congressional District of Illinois, but the southern portion is representated by the 8th Congressional District.

Geography[link]

Buffalo Grove is located at 42°9′59″N 87°57′48″W / 42.16639°N 87.96333°W / 42.16639; -87.96333 (42.166332, −87.963391).^[3] The village has a prime location within the Northern Suburbs of Chicago. Residents could take Illinois Route 83 north towards central Lake County, Illinois and also south towards O'Hare International Airport. Furthermore, numerous east-west streets could take residents to 20 minutes east to Lake Michigan and other North Shore suburbs such as Lake Forest, Highland Park, and Glencoe.

Buffalo Grove is spilt along Lake Cook Road into two parts, the Lake County Vernon Township portion and the Cook County Wheeling Township portion. Around three-quarters of the village is in Vernon Township. Both portions differ in their demographics and similarities with neighboring communities. Buffalo Grove shares a border with Wheeling to its southeast, Arlington Heights to its southwest and south, Riverwoods and unincorporated Deerfield directly east, Lincolnshire to its northeast, Vernon Hills directly north, and Long Grove to its northwest. Unincorporated Prairie View is located in two different parts around the village. First, there is the larger and historic portion which is towards the north and includes Didier Farms. Then, there is the second, much smaller portion which is centered around the Horatio Gardens subdivision just east the intersection of Weiland Road and Pauline Avenue. Today, Buffalo Grove and Lincolnshire continue to annex certain portions of Prairie View.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 9.2 square miles (24 km²), of which, 9.2 square miles (24 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.10 km²) of it (0.22%) is water. According to the village's land use data, single-family homes make up 43.9% of village land, 9.2% for single-family attached homes, 4.2% for multi family homes, 4.8% for commercial purposes, 2.4% for office, 10.8% for industrial, 3.5% is public property, 6.1% is right-of-way/utility, and only 1.4% remains vacant. A modest 13.8% is for parks and open space; there are 50 parks throughout the village and 45 miles (72 km) of bike paths/sidewalks. The Mike Rylko Community Park, located northwest of the intersection of McHenry Road (IL Route 83) and Buffalo Grove Road, is the largest park in the village with an estimated 76.5 acres (310,000 m²). The village also manages a small portion of the Buffalo Creek Forest Preserve which primarily is located in Long Grove. The forest preserve has a total of 408 acres (1.65 km²) and located north of the intersection of Lake-Cook Road and Arlington Heights Road.

Demographics[link]

As of the census^[4] of 2000, there were 43,195 people, 15,708 households, and 11,655 families residing in the village. The population density was 4,666.9 people per square mile (1,802.7/km²). There were 16,166 housing units at an average density of 1,758.2 per square mile (679.2/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 88.70% White, 0.76% African American, 0.06% Native American, 8.43% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.91% from other races, and 1.14% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.32% of the population. Like in many of the nearby North Shore Suburbs, there is a large Jewish population in Buffalo Grove.

There were 15,708 households out of which 42.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 66.0% were married couples living together, 6.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.8% were non-families. 22.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.72 and the average family size was 3.23.

In the village the population was spread out with 28.9% under the age of 18, 5.3% from 18 to 24, 32.2% from 25 to 44, 24.6% from 45 to 64, and 9.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females there were 93.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.2 males.

According to a 2007 estimate, the median income for a household in the village is $83,545, and the median income for a family is $101,336.^[5] Males have a median income of $63,107 versus $41,039 for females. The per capita income for the village is $49,794. 2.3% of the population and 1.3% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 2.6% are under the age of 18 and 2.2% are 65 or older.

History[link]

Illinois became a state in 1818. The Buffalo Grove area was opened for settlement after the Treaty of Chicago (1833) where the United Nation of Ojibwe, Ottawa and Potawatomi ceded their Illinois lands to the United States.

During the 1830s, the area saw its first settlers, mostly land speculators. By the 1840s, they sold their land to German Catholic dairy farmers; it is believed that either Melchior Raupp or Jacob Weidner were the founders of the community. Eventually, other families came to the area and they formed a close community. The settlers built the first St. Mary's Church in 1852 and St. Mary's School in 1855. However, both eventually burned to the ground. By 1869, they were rebuilt, and a small downtown formed with the addition of the Weidner General Store and the Firnbach Tavern, built in 1899. The tavern still stands today and houses a Lou Malnati's Pizzeria.^[6]

The origin of the name "Buffalo Grove" is uncertain, but the traditional account is: "When the English, French, and Pottawatomi Indians were ranging through northeastern Illinois, so were the buffalo. The buffalo left the Wheeling woods in the morning and grazed their way diagonally to Long Grove. Noon found them in a grove of trees along the creek—drinking and resting. A buffalo skeleton was found beside the 'Buffalo Creek,' as it soon became called."^[6]

Apart from a downtown which centered around the intersection of Buffalo Grove Road and Lake-Cook Road, Buffalo Grove served as a key farming community. The community gained a special reputation for supplying milk, cheese, and other dairy products to Chicago. The Weidner Cheese Factory was one of the key settlements. By 1926, the Public Service Company of Northern Illinois offered electric power to the area farms, and by 1930, the first concrete road in the Northern Illinois was built. This road was located in south Buffalo Grove, Dundee Road.

Following the end of World War II, there was a great demand for modestly sized homes for returning GIs. In the late 1950s, Al Frank, a developer, built hundreds of homes along Buffalo Grove Road, west along Bernard Drive as far as the current Park District headquarters, formerly Louisa May Alcott School. With a booming population, on March 7, 1958 Buffalo Grove was incorporated as a village. By 1961, new homes west of Buffalo Creek and the school were added as far west as Greenwood Courts North and South, north through neighborhoods including Cherrywood and Cottonwood Roads and south through White Pine Road. These earliest homes, in the Cook County section of the village, are sometimes referred to as "Old Buffalo Grove". Older housing stock is often surrounded by larger, newer houses, apartments and condominiums due to pockets of formerly undeveloped farmland being surrounded by housing. Over time, the holdout parcels were sold and developed.

The fledgling village grew rapidly in the 1960s with the development of Ranch Mart Shopping Center, near the corner of Buffalo Grove Road and Dundee Road (State Route 68). In the late '60s, the center contained a grocery store (Jewel Foods), a dime store (Hornsby's), a dry cleaner, a shoe store, and a pharmacy (Mark Drugs). Nearby, on Dundee Road, stood a bowling alley (originally "The Rose Bowl," later, "Striker Lanes"). In 1970, the enclosed Buffalo Grove Mall, which included a grocery store ("Elm Farms," a subsidiary of National Tea), a dime store ("Scott's" of the TG&Y chain), an ice cream shop ("Baskin Robbins"), and a Radio Shack, opened. Both of these complexes have undergone significant physical renovations and tenant changes in the intervening years. During this time, numerous other shopping centers were developed, but primarily in Cook County. With rising taxes, along with rapidly increasing land values, farm families were encouraged to sell farms for residential and commercial development. By the early 1970s Buffalo Grove had approximately 15,000 residents.

It was during the 1980s and 1990s that village saw its largest population boom. The village had begun as early as the 1970s, annexing unincorporated regions of Lake County, and were now beginning to develop the land into residential developments. Helping encourage further growth into Lake County was the extension of Buffalo Grove Road past McHenry Road (IL Route 83). Today, Buffalo Grove Road ends at U.S. Route 45 in Vernon Hills. In the late 1980s, Buffalo Grove created the Town Center retail development along McHenry Road north of Lake-Cook Road. However, the development has faced numerous challenges over the years, and there had been talk of either redevelopment of the property or building another similar development elsewhere in the village.

Because of the rise in the population, in 1992, the United States Postal Service established a free-standing post office in the village. Towards the late 1990s, the village made a major road improvement at the heavy intersection of Milwaukee Avenue and Lake-Cook Road, by having Lake-Cook serve as an overpass over Milwaukee. In addition, the village extended Deerfield Road west to Busch Parkway. A short time later, Busch Parkway was rerouted to allow for the new Deerfield Road addition to serve what remained of Busch Parkway (to Checker Road). With the improvements to Deerfield Road and the population boom, Chicago's train service, Metra, opened the North Central Service which stopped at a new station in Buffalo Grove on Deerfield Parkway. In 2005, the village had upwards of 43,000 people in it.

Today, most of the village is developed. There are no working farms left in the village. There are farms in the area, though, such as Didier Farms in unincorporated Prairie View and Horcher's Farm in Wheeling. The village continues trying to annex land of unincorporated Prairie View (Vernon Township), which is surrounded by Buffalo Grove. Buffalo Grove has often sparred with neighboring Wheeling over the Chevy Chase County Club, located north of the intersection of Milwaukee Avenue and Lake-Cook Road, along with the Arlington Club development, which is an apartment and condominium development located north of the intersection of Buffalo Grove Road and Dundee Road. Buffalo Grove has attempted to annex both properties multiple times, but it continues to fail. The village's primary annexation interests are of Prairie View to the north and unincorporated Deerfield property to the east.

During the 2010 elections, Buffalo Grove made history by recalling the first public official in Illinois history, with nearly 70% of the voters agreeing to the recall. After only a year and a half as a trustee on the Buffalo Grove Village Board, Lisa Stone was recalled for being disruptive during board meetings in which she accused fellow board members of taking part in illegal political activities. Stone was also accused of bypassing the board on certain issues, and instead going directly to private agencies.

Recreation[link]

Pools[link]

Willow Stream Pool, Spray And Play at Michael Rylko Park Pool, Prairie View (Vernon Township) Pool, Aquadome Indoor Pool at Buffalo Grove High School.

Golf Courses[link]

Buffalo Grove Golf Course, The Arboretum Buffalo Grove, Michael Rylko Community Park (Golf Dome), Chevy Chase Golf Club (Wheeling), Twin Orchard Country Club (Long Grove), Vernon Hills Golf Course (Vernon Hills), Ravinia Green Country Club (Riverwoods)

Lakes and Creeks[link]

Buffalo Creek, Aptakisic Creek, Indian Creek, Green Lake, Willow Stream, Sommerset Detention Pond, Candelwood Detention Pond.

Parks[link]

There are close to 50 parks; which are: Alcott Center & Park, Aptakisic Park, Apple Hill Park, Bicentennial Park, Bison Park, Buffalo Creek Forest Preserve, Cambridge Park, Camelot Corner Park, Canterbury Park, Cherbourg Park, Children’s Park, Churchill Park, Cooper Park, Crossings Pond, Emmerich Park, Frenchmens Cove, Green Lake Park, Happy Tails Dog Park, Highland Point Park, Ivy Hall Park, Kilmer Park, Lions Park, Michael Rylko Community Park formerly known as Buffalo Grove Community Park, Longfellow Park, Mill Creek Park, Mirielle Park, Nicole Park, Northwood Park, Old Farm Park, Oxford Park, Parkchester Park, Prairie Park, Prairie Grove Park, Pritchett Park, Raupp Memorial Park, Rolling Hills Park, Rolling Hills North Park, Tripp Park, Tartan Park, Twin Creeks Park, Veterans Park, Weidner Park, Wellington Commons Park, Westchester Park, Willow Grove Park, Willow Stream Park, Windfield Park, Windsor Ridge Park and Woodland Park.

Education[link]

Earl Pritchett Elementary School

Four school districts and three high schools, from two districts serve Buffalo Grove, which are Township High School District 214 and Adlai E. Stevenson High School District 125. The majority of public high school students in Buffalo Grove that live in the Cook County portion of Buffalo Grove attend Buffalo Grove High School, which is the only public high school located within Buffalo Grove itself. A smaller population of students residing in the Cook County portion of Buffalo Grove attend Wheeling High School, in nearby Wheeling. Those living in the Lake County portion of Buffalo Grove attend Adlai E. Stevenson High School, in nearby Lincolnshire.

Grade school districts and schools serving Buffalo Grove are:

Cook County:

Buffalo Grove-Wheeling Community Consolidated School District 21:

• Booth Tarkington Elementary School (K-5) (Located in Wheeling)
• Eugene Field Elementary School (K-5) (Located in Wheeling)
• James Whitcomb Riley Elementary School (K–5) (Located in Arlington Heights)
• Edgar Allan Poe Elementary School (K-5) (Located in Arlington Heights)
• Joyce Kilmer Elementary School (K–5)
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Elementary School (K-5)
• Jack London Middle School (6–8) (Located in Wheeling)
• James Fenimore Cooper Middle School (6–8)

Lake County:

Aptakisic-Tripp C C School District 102:/Aptakisic-Tripp Community Consolidated School District 102

• Tripp Elementary School (K-4)
• Earl Pritchett Elementary School (K-4)
• Meridian Middle School (5–6)
• Aptakisic Junior High School (7–8)

Kildeer Countryside C C School District 96:/Kildeer Countryside Community Consolidated School District 96

• Willow Grove Kindergarten Center (Kindergarten)
• Ivy Hall Elementary School (1–5)
• Prairie Elementary School (1–5)
• Country Meadows Elementary School (Located in Long Grove) (1–5)
• Kildeer Countryside Elementary School (Located in Long Grove) (1–5)
• Twin Groves Middle School (6–8)
• Woodlawn Middle School (Located in Long Grove) (6–8)

Lincolnshire-Prairie View School District 103:

• Laura Sprague Elementary School (K-2) (Located in Lincolnshire)
• Half Day Intermediate School (3–4) (Located in Lincolnshire)
• Daniel Wright Junior High School (5–8) (Located in Lincolnshire)

• St. Mary School (Catholic pre-school through 8th grade)

Libraries[link]

The Vernon Area Library, which is located just east of the border in neighboring Lincolnshire.

Wheeling Township Buffalo Grove as well as a small portion of Lake County Buffalo Grove is served by the Indian Trails Public Library District located in Wheeling south of the intersection of Dundee Road and Schoenbeck Road. Vernon Township Buffalo Grove is served by the Vernon Area Public Library District located in Lincolnshire just north of the intersection of Half Day Road and Olde Half Day Road.

Local Media[link]

Buffalo Grove news is reported by Buffalo Grove Patch (website), an online community newspaper that launched in 2010. In addition, the village has been covered by the Pioneer Press with its Buffalo Grove Countryside.

Attractions[link]

The Raupp Museum, operated by the Buffalo Grove Park District, is the town's museum of local history. Also, Buffalo Grove's Saint Mary's Church, completed 1899, is the oldest building in the village.^[7] There is also Lou Malnatis Pizzaria, which is housed in the second oldest building in the village (also completed 1899).^[7] Located around the same downtown area, there is the Buffalo Grove Town Center, which is a major shopping and retail destination within the village, at the Buffalo Grove Road and McHenry Road Intersections with Lake-Cook Road, being anchored by the Buffalo Grove Theaters and Escape, a bowling/arcade/baseball batting cages/laser-tag venue that hosts birthday parties.

During the summer, Buffalo Grove hosts two festivals. The Buffalo Grove Invitational Fine Arts Festival is held in Buffalo Grove Town Center in mid-July as over 30,000 visitors attend on average. In September, Buffalo Grove hosts the multi-day Buffalo Grove Days festival around the intersection of Lake-Cook Road and Raupp Boulevard. The festival is mostly home to carnival games, roller coaster rides, arts and craft booths, food vendors, and live music. There is also a parade held at the beginning of the festival and fireworks on the Saturday night. The festival usually attracts not just Buffalo Grove residents, but also residents from the neighboring communities. Throughout the summer Buffalo Grove hosts a Farmer's Market at the Spray and Play Pool on McHenry Road west of the intersection of Buffalo Grove Road.

Transportation[link]

Buffalo Grove relies on multiple arterial roads. Going north-south, the village uses Milwaukee Avenue (IL Route 21) on the east, Buffalo Grove Road and Weiland Road down the center, and Arlington Heights Road on the west. Going east-west, the village uses Dundee Road (IL Route 68) to its south, Lake-Cook Road and Deerfield Parkway towards the center, and both Aptakisic and Half Day Road (IL Route 22) to its north. McHenry Road (IL Route 83) acts as a diagonal road in the village, going north-south in some portions, but also east-west in others.

Since 1996, Buffalo Grove has had a station on Metra's North Central Service, which provides daily rail service between Antioch, Illinois and Chicago, Illinois (at Union Station). The train station is located just east of the intersection of Weiland Road and Deerfield Parkway. North of the intersection of Half Day Road (IL Route 22) and Prairie Road, there is another station for Prairie View, the unincorporated region to Buffalo Grove's northeast, and is on Metra's North Central Service. However, since much of Prairie View is surrounded by Buffalo Grove, many residents may also use this station in addition to the main Buffalo Grove station. The North Central Line does not run on the weekends or very often during the week thus forcing many Buffalo Grove residents to use the Arlington Heights Metra Station, the Deerfield Metra Station, or the Lake Cook Road Metra Station also in Deerfield.

Notable people[link]

• Raymond Benson, author^{[citation needed]}
• Ali Cobrin, actress, (Kara in American Reunion)
• Simone Elkeles, author^{[citation needed]}
• Ronald Goldman, victim in the O. J. Simpson murder case
• Brett Lebda, defence for the Toronto Maple Leafs
• Sidney Mathias, state representative
• Dickey Simpkins, former Chicago Bull^{[citation needed]}
• Vince Vaughn, actor
• Andy Wozniewski, defense hockey player in the NHL and NLA

References[link]

1. ^ 2000 United States Census Data
2. ^ Guy, Sandra. "4 Chicago suburbs top 'best places to live'". Chicago Sun-Times, July 14, 2009. Accessed July 14, 2009.
3. ^ "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. February 12, 2011. http://www.census.gov/geo/www/gazetteer/gazette.html. Retrieved April 23, 2011. 
4. ^ "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. http://factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved January 31, 2008. 
5. ^ Buffalo Grove village, Illinois Fact Sheet, American FactFinder.
6. ^ ^{a b} "The History of Buffalo Grove", The Village of Buffalo Grove 50th Anniversary Committee, 2008.
7. ^ ^{a b} http://www.vbg.org/index.aspx?NID=191

External links[link]

	Chicago portal
	Illinois portal

• Village of Buffalo Grove official website
• The Vibary of Buffalo Grove local search and listings
• Buffalo Grove High School official website
• Adlai E. Stevenson High School official website
• St. Mary School official website
• Buffalo Grove Days

	Long Grove, Illinois	Vernon Hills, Illinois / Prairie View, Illinois	Lincolnshire, Illinois
	Long Grove, Illinois		Riverwoods, Illinois / Deerfield, Illinois
		Buffalo Grove, Illinois    East
	Arlington Heights, Illinois	Arlington Heights, Illinois	Wheeling, Illinois

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State of Illinois
Flag Seal
Nickname(s): Land of Lincoln; The Prairie State
Motto(s): State sovereignty, national union
Official language(s)	English[1]
Spoken language(s)	English (80.8%) Spanish (10.9%) Other (5.1%)[2]
Demonym	Illinoisan
Capital	Springfield
Largest city	Chicago
Largest metro area	Chicago metropolitan area
Area	Ranked 25th in the U.S.
- Total	57,914 sq mi (149,998 km2)
- Width	210 miles (340 km)
- Length	395 miles (629 km)
- % water	4.0/Negligible
- Latitude	36° 58′ N to 42° 30′ N
- Longitude	87° 30′ W to 91° 31′ W
Population	Ranked 5th in the U.S.
- Total	12,869,257 (2011 est)[3]
- Density	232/sq mi  (89.4/km2) Ranked 12th in the U.S.
- Median household income	$54,124[4] (17)
Elevation
- Highest point	Charles Mound[5][6][7] 1,235 ft (376.4 m)
- Mean	600 ft  (180 m)
- Lowest point	Confluence of Mississippi River and Ohio River[6][7] 280 ft (85 m)
Before statehood	Illinois Territory
Admission to Union	December 3, 1818 (21st)
Governor	Pat Quinn (D)
Lieutenant Governor	Sheila Simon (D)
Legislature	General Assembly
- Upper house	Senate
- Lower house	House of Representatives
U.S. Senators	Dick Durbin (D) Mark Kirk (R)
U.S. House delegation	11 Republicans, 8 Democrats (list)
Time zone	Central: UTC -6/-5
Abbreviations	IL, Ill., US-IL
Website	www.illinois.gov

Illinois State symbols
The Flag of Illinois.
The Seal of Illinois.
Animate insignia
Amphibian	Eastern Tiger Salamander
Bird(s)	Northern Cardinal
Butterfly	Monarch Butterfly
Fish	Bluegill
Flower(s)	Violet
Grass	Big bluestem
Mammal(s)	White-tailed deer
Reptile	Painted turtle
Tree	White oak
Inanimate insignia
Dance	Square dance
Food	Gold Rush Apple · Popcorn
Fossil	Tully Monster
Mineral	Fluorite
Poem	The Death Poem
Slogan(s)	"Land of Lincoln"
Soil	Drummer silty clay loam
Song(s)	"Illinois"
Route marker(s)
State Quarter
Released in 2003
Lists of United States state insignia

Illinois (ⁱ/ˌɪlɨˈnɔɪ/ IL-i-NOY) is the 25th most extensive and the 5th most populous of the 50 United States, and is often noted as a microcosm of the entire country.^[8] With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is a major transportation hub. The Port of Chicago connects the state to other global ports from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean; as well as the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois River. For decades, O'Hare International Airport has ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms^[8] and politics.

Although the state's largest population centers today are in northern Illinois, originally the state's population grew from south to north, with settlers arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s. In 1818, Illinois achieved statehood. Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan.^[9] Railroads and John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois' rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmlands, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars. The Great Migration established a large community of African Americans in Chicago that created the city's famous jazz and blues cultures.^[10][11]

Three U.S. Presidents have been elected while living in Illinois—Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama. Additionally, President Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was the only US President actually born and raised in Illinois. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official state slogan, Land of Lincoln, which has been displayed on its license plates since 1954.^[12][13]

Name[link]

"Illinois" is the modern spelling for the early French missionaries and explorers' name for the Illinois people, a name that was spelled in many different ways in the early records.^[14]

The name "Illinois" has traditionally been said to mean "man" or "men" in the Miami-Illinois language, with the original iliniwek transformed via French into Illinois.^[15][16] However, this etymology is not supported by the Illinois language itself, in which the word for 'man' is ireniwa and plural 'men' is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has also been said to mean "tribe of superior men",^[17] though this is nothing more than a false etymology. In fact the name "Illinois" derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa "he speaks the regular way". This was then taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe· (pluralized as ilinwe·k). These forms were then borrowed into French, where the /we/ ending acquired the spelling -ois. The current form, Illinois, began to appear in the early 1670s. The Illinois' name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms.^[18][19][20]

History[link]

Pre-European[link]

Mississippian copper plate found at the Saddle Site in Union County, Illinois

Native Americans lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation. Cahokia, the largest regional chiefdom and urban center of the Pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, was located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. They built more than 100 platform and burial mounds, a 50 acres (20 ha) plaza^[21] and a woodhenge in a planned design expressing the culture's cosmology. Monks Mound, the center of the site, is the largest precolumbian structure north of the Valley of Mexico and is 100 feet (30 m) high, 951 feet (290 m) long, 836 feet (255 m) wide and covers 13.8 acres (5.6 ha).^[22] It also contains about 814,000 cubic yards (622,000 m³) of earth.^[23] It was topped by a structure thought to have measured about 105 feet (32 m) in length and 48 feet (15 m) in width, covered an area 5,000 square feet (460 m²) and could have been as much as 50 feet (15 m) high, making its peak 150 feet (46 m) above the level of the plaza. The civilization vanished in the 15th century for unknown reasons, but historians and archeologists have speculated that the people depleted the area of resources. Many indigenous tribes engaged in constant warfare. According to Suzanne Austin Alchon, "At one site in the central Illinois River valley, one-third of all adults died as a result of violent injuries."^[24]

The next major power in the region was the Illinois Confederation or Illini, a political alliance among several tribes. The Illinois people numbered about 25,000 in 1700, but systematic attacks and warfare by the Iroquois reduced their numbers by 90 percent.^[25] Gradually, members of the Potawatomi, Miami, Sauk, and other tribes came in from the east and north.^[26] In the American Revolution, the Illinois and Potawatomi supported the American colonists' cause.