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Libertyville, Illinois

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For other places named Libertyville, see Libertyville (disambiguation).
Libertyville, Illinois
Motto(s): 
Fortitudine Vincimus, "by endurance we conquer"
File:Libertyville Village Hall.JPG
Libertyville Village Hall
CountryUnited States
StateIllinois
County Lake
Government
 • MayorJeffrey Harger
Population
21,760
Time zoneCentral
Zip Code
60048
Area code847
Websitelibertyville.com

Libertyville is a northern suburb of Chicago in Lake County, Illinois, United States. It is located 5 miles from Lake Michigan, and is west of the Des Plaines River. The population was 20,742 at the 2000 census, and estimated to be 21,760 as of 2005. (There is also a township of the same name, which includes the village and some surrounding areas.) Located in northeastern Illinois to the southwest of Waukegan and the northwest of Lake Forest, its immediate neighbors are Mundelein to the west and Vernon Hills to the south. The mayor of Libertyville is Jeffrey Harger. On April 8, 2009, Terry Weppler beat out the incumbent Harger in the town's mayoral election. Weppler defeated Harger 71 percent to 29 percent with all 21 precincts reporting. [1]

Geography

Lunch In The Park In Libertyville

Libertyville is located at 42°17′3″N 87°57′38″W / 42.28417°N 87.96056°W / 42.28417; -87.96056Invalid arguments have been passed to the {{#coordinates:}} function (42.284222, -87.960673).Template:GR

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 9.1 square miles (23.5 km²), of which 8.8 square miles (22.7 km²) is land and 0.3 square miles (0.8 km²) is water. The total area of Libertyville is 3.20% water.

The Des Plaines River forms much of the eastern boundary of the village. Other bodies of water include Lake Minear, Butler Lake and Liberty Lake.

Libertyville's main street is Milwaukee Avenue. The main route to Chicago is Interstate 94; Chicago's Loop is approximately 45 miles away.

Demographics

Parade balloon advertising the Goose Dropping Festival in Libertyville

As of the censusTemplate:GR of 2000, there were 20,742 people, 7,298 households, and 5,451 families residing in the village. The population density was 2,364.5 people per square mile (913.2/km²). There were 7,458 housing units at an average density of 850.2/sq mi (328.3/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 92% White, 5% Asian and 1% African American. 0.1% is Native American. About 1% each are classified as belonging to other races or to two or more races. 3% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

While still largely homogenous compared to the country as a whole, Libertyville has become slightly more integrated than it once was; the 1960 census, for example, found a total of seven non-white residents, making the town 99.9% white.[2]

There were 7,298 households out of which 40% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 66% were married couples living together, 7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25% were non-families. 22% of all households were made up of individuals and 8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.7 and the average family size was 3.2.

28% of the village's population is under the age of 18, 5% from 18 to 24, 27% from 25 to 44, 28% from 45 to 64, and 12% 65 years of age or older. The median age is 39 years. For every 100 females there were 92.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.9 males.

According to a 2007 estimate, the median income for a household in the village was $106,337, and the median income for a family was $127,474.[3] Males had a median income of $72,320 versus $39,455 for females. The per capita income for the village was $40,426. About 1.9% of families and 3.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4.2% of those under age 18 and 4.9% of those age 65 or over.

File:Libertyville Downtown.JPG
Libertyville Downtown

History

The land that is now Libertyville was the property of the Illinois River Potawatomi Indians until August 1829, when economic and resource pressures forced the tribe to sell much of their land in northern Illinois to the U.S. government for $12,000 plus an additional $12,000 in goods, plus an annual delivery of 50 barrels of salt.[4]

The treaty forced the Potawatomi to leave their lands by the mid-1830s,[5] and by 1835 the future Libertyville had its first recorded non-indigenous resident, George Vardin. Said to be a "well-educated" English immigrant with a wife and a young daughter, Vardin lived in a cabin located where the Cook Park branch of the Cook Memorial Public Library District stands today. Though he apparently moved on to the west that same year, the settlement that grew up around his cabin was initially known as Vardin's Grove.[6]

In 1836, during the celebrations that marked the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the community voted to call itself Independence Grove. The next year the village got its first practicing physician, Dr. Jesse Foster, and its first lawyer, Horace Butler, after whom Butler Lake is named.[6] It also got a post office in that year, an event that forced another name change, because of an already existing Independence Grove elsewhere in the state. On April 16, 1837, the new post office (possibly located in Vardin's former cabin) was registered under the name Libertyville.

That was not the end of the town's shifting identities, however. When Libertyville briefly became the county seat of Lake County in 1839, it changed its name to Burlington, only settling on its current name when the seat moved to Little Fort (now Waukegan, which is the Potawatomi word for "Little Fort").[7]

Libertyville's most prominent building, the Cook Mansion, was built in 1879 by Ansel Brainerd Cook, almost on the spot where Vardin's cabin had been built in the 1830s. Cook, a teacher and stone mason, became a prominent builder and politician in Chicago, providing flagstones for the city's sidewalks and taking part in the rebuilding after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The two-story Victorian mansion served as Cook's summer home as well as the center of his horse farm, which provided animals for Chicago's horsecar lines. The building was remodeled in 1921, when it became the town library, gaining a Colonial-style facade with a pillared portico.[8]

The community expanded rapidly with a spur of the Milwaukee Road train line (now a Metra commuter line) reaching Libertyville in 1881, resulting in the incorporation of the Village of Libertyville in 1882, with John Locke as first village president.[7]

Libertyville's downtown area was largely destroyed by fire in 1895, and the village board mandated brick to be used for reconstruction--resulting in a village center whose architecture is substantially unified by both period and building material.[2] The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which gave Libertyville a Great American Main Street Award, called the downtown "a place with its own sense of self, where people still stroll the streets on a Saturday night, and where the tailor, the hometown bakery, and the vacuum cleaner repair shop are shoulder to shoulder with gourmet coffee vendors and a microbrewery."[9]

Samuel Insull, founder of Commonwealth Edison, began purchasing land south of Libertyville in 1906. His eventually acquired 4,445 acres, a holding that he named Hawthorne-Mellody Farms. He also bought the Chicago & Milwaukee Electric line (later the Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee), which had built a spur from Lake Bluff to Libertyville in 1903. When Insull was ruined by the Great Depression, parts of his estate were bought by prominent Chicagoans Adlai Stevenson and John F. Cuneo.[2]

Schools

Elementary Schools

  • Adler
  • Butterfield
  • Copeland
  • Rockland
  • St. Josephs
  • Oak Grove

Middle Schools

Hawthorn School District

Main article: Hawthorn Community Consolidated School District 73

Students living in the southern-most portions of Libertyville--comprised mainly of the Greentree and Red Top subdivisions and other communities south of Golf Road--attend elementary and middle school in the Vernon Hills-based Hawthorn District 73.

Libertyville High School

Main article: Libertyville High School

Part of Community High School District 128.

Notable residents

Sports

Libertyville High School's football team, the Libertyville Wildcats, won the State Championship in 2004 and was runner-up in 2003.

Libertyville High School Varsity Cheerleading was also a National qualifier and contender, taking 3rd place in the Co-Ed Division in Minneapolis, Minnesota during the same academic school year that the Libertyville Varsity Football team won the State Championship.

LHS's boys lacrosse team made it to the state final in 2004, losing to Loyola Academy. The team is a power in the state of Illinois, and has made multiple state final fours.

LHS's wrestling program appeared in the 2008 Dual Team State Finals, taking fourth. This performance has been the capstone on a run of nineteen regional championships in twenty years with Team State appearances in 2002, 2005, and now 2008.

Libertyville has a youth football organization called The Libertyville Boys Club. This includes many football travel teams run by the organization based on weight. It is played at Butler Lake Park.

The Libertyville Little League is a baseball league that includes a league for every age. Libertyville has a travel team for each age as well, but they are not run by LLL.

Libertyville has a youth basketball league that is run by the Libertyville Sports Complex, which hosts many Libertyville events.

The Greater Libertyville Soccer Association (GLSA) is a successful organization in Libertyville that includes house and travel teams.

Library

Libertyville is one of the six communities that comprise the Cook Memorial Public Library District. The Cook Park library, located on Cook and Brainerd streets in Libertyville, is one of the District's two library facilities. The library was originally housed in the Cook Mansion, after resident Ansel B. Cook's wife, Emily, deeded the property to the Village of Libertyville in 1920 for use as a library. [10] In 1968, a 33,000 square foot addition was added, adjacent to the Cook home. By 1984, the library's collection as well as the population, had doubled in size. The Evergreen Interim Library opened in 2003 as a temporary facility at the south end of the District, in Vernon Hills, Illinois. In 2007, the Library Board adopted plans to add an approximately 10,000 square foot addition to the Cook Park facility. Architects are currently completing the design for the addition.[11]

Newspapers

The Libertyville Review published by Pioneer Press, covers Libertyville. Regional newspapers that occasionally contain coverage of Libertyville include Chicago Tribune, Daily Herald and News Sun.

Transportation

Libertyville has a station on Metra's North Central Service, which provides daily rail service between Antioch, Illinois and Chicago, Illinois (at Union Station). It also has two stations along Metra's Milwaukee District/North Line which provides service between Fox Lake, Illinois and Union Station, one of which shares a driveway with the station for the North Central Service.

Drinking water supply

The Libertyville water supply comes from the Central Lake County Joint Action Water Agency (CLCJAWA) located in Lake Bluff, Illinois. CLCJAWA purifies water from Lake Michigan.

Recreation

Pools

  • Adler Pool
  • Riverside

Golf Courses

  • Riverside
  • The Merit Club

Lakes

  • Lake Minear
  • Butler Lake
  • Independence Grove

Parks

  • Charles Brown Park
  • Riverside Park
  • Butler Lake Park
  • Nicholas Dowden Park
  • Sunrise Rotary Park
  • Bolander Park
  • Adler Park
  • Blueberry Hill Park
  • Paul Neal Park

Clubs and Organizations

References

  1. ^ http://www.pioneerlocal.com/libertyville/news/1516927,li-mayorfinal-040809-s1.article
  2. ^ a b c Encyclopedia of Chicago: Libertyville, IL, chicagohistory.org. Accessed 2008-01-04.
  3. ^ http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ACSSAFFFacts?_event=Search&geo_id=16000US1741742&_geoContext=01000US%7C04000US17%7C16000US1741742&_street=&_county=libertyville&_cityTown=libertyville&_state=04000US17&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=geoSelect&_useEV=&pctxt=fph&pgsl=160&_submenuId=factsheet_1&ds_name=ACS_2007_3YR_SAFF&_ci_nbr=null&qr_name=null&reg=null%3Anull&_keyword=&_industry=
  4. ^ Potawatomi Treaties and Treaty Rights, mpm.edu. Accessed 2008-01-04.
  5. ^ The Illinois Constitution of 1818, 19thcircuitcourt.state.il.us. Accessed 2008-01-04.
  6. ^ a b History of the Cook Property. Accessed 2008-01-04.
  7. ^ a b Libertyville History, libertyville.com. Accessed 2008-01-04.
  8. ^ Ansel B. Cook Victorian Museum. Accessed 2008-01-04.
  9. ^ National Main Street Awards, mainstreet.org. Accessed 2008-01-04.
  10. ^ Ansel B. Cook Victorian Museum. Accessed 2008-01-04.
  11. ^ [www.cooklib.org].

See also

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