History
The first houses were built in 1836. That year Erastus Patterson and his family arrived from Vermont and opened a tavern to service passengers on the Green Bay Trail post road. The village was first subdivided in 1854 by Charles Peck and Walter S. Gurnee, President of Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. Winnetka's first private school was opened in 1856 by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Peck with seventeen pupils. In 1859 the first public school building was built with private funds at the south-east corner of Elm and Maple Streets. The first year's budget for this school was two hundred dollars. The town was incorporated in 1869 with a population of 450.
The oldest surviving house in Winnetka is the Schmidt-Burnham House. It was moved in 2003 from its previous location on Tower Road to the Crow Island Woods.
Winnetka’s neighborhoods include estates and homes designed by distinguished architects including George Washington Maher, Walter Burley Griffin, John S. Van Bergen, Robert Seyfarth, Robert McNitt, Howard Van Doren Shaw and David Adler.
The Chicago and Milwaukee Railway was built in 1855 through Winnetka, connecting its namesake cities, this eventually became the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company. In 1937 the railroad tracks through Winnetka were lowered after people were hit at the grade crossings. Due to public interest both grade crossings in Winnetka and Hubbard Woods were lowered, with the station at Indian Hill located above grade level. In 1995 the C&NW was merged into the Union Pacific. Only Metra trains are operated on this track now; freight operations ended in the late 1980s. Winnetka has three Metra stations: Hubbard Woods, Winnetka, and Indian Hill.
The Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee electric interurban was built through Winnetka and the North Shore in the first decade of the 1900s and the line through Winnetka was removed in 1955. This is now the Green Bay Trail bicycle path.
During the Great Depression both the C&NW and the C&NSM lines were rebuilt into a grade separated right of way mostly below street level to prevent crossing accidents.
The Crow Island School, designed by Eliel & Eero Saarinen and the architectural firm Perkins, Wheeler & Will, was declared a National Historical Landmark in 1990. It was declared 12th among all buildings and the best architectural design of all schools. 10,000 people attended the opening in 1938.
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“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
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