Berwyn is located in Cook County, Illinois, and is home to more than 56,000 people. The land on which he sits today was once a cold swamp. When the glaciers retreated, Lake Chicago was formed. Over time, the lake shrank and became Lake Michigan. The stream connecting this lake and the Illinois River was named Gryazev Lake, which stretched only beyond the wall of the southern border of the city.
The beginning of Berlin
The development of the city began in 1846, when Theodore Doty received the first act for the land. He built Plank Road, which is now Ogden Avenue. Ten years later, 347 acres of land bordering this avenue and several others were acquired by Thomas F. Baldwin. This developer wanted to create a rich, aristocratic community, which he would call Laverne. Unfortunately, few people are interested in living on grassy marshes that were flooded regularly, and they could only be reached on one road through a horse and buggy.
Unsuccessful, Baldwin imported thousands of trees and built roads through the community. In 1862, he sold the 80-foot tract to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railways to expand the railroad into the community. The railway opened two years later, but the train did not make regular stops. The railway would not have built a station in Lavnern, so the residents themselves built it.
Growth and resumption of growth
Financial panic in 1873 and the death of Baldwin three years later stopped the growth of Laverne. In 1879, Emma Baldwin, the daughter of a developer, sold most of this land to a group of properties controlled by Marshall Field. Ten new homes were identified by the end of 1880, and eight years later the community grew so much that the Baldwins donated land for the construction of the school, the first public building.
Two lawyers from Chicago, Wilber J. Andrews and Charles E. Piper, acquired 106 hectares of Laverne in 1890 and doubled their reserves in just a year. Their construction included a railway station, named after a division in a suburb of Philadelphia. The name was stuck, and all settlements with the population bore the name after 1901.
Andrews and Piper developed the southern part of the city. John Kelly, a realtor, builder, insurance agent and social activist working in the northern region. In 1908, Berwyn received a city charter and soon became the fastest growing suburb in the area. Today, many of the carefully designed bungalows remain in the early 1900s, and the population is becoming more diverse, representing the melting pot that characterizes America.
