Editing La Grange, Illinois (section)

==History==
The area around La Grange was first settled in the 1830s, when Chicago residents moved out to the west due to the rapid population increase in the city in the decade since its incorporation. The first settler, Robert Leitch, came to the area in 1830, seven years before the City of Chicago was incorporated. La Grange's location, at approximately {{convert|13|mi}} from the [[Chicago Loop]], is not considered far from the city by today's standards, but in that time the residents enjoyed the peace of rural life without much communication with urban residents.

The village was officially incorporated on June 11, 1879. It was founded by Franklin Dwight Cossitt, who was born in [[Granby, Connecticut]], and raised in [[Tennessee]], and moved to Chicago in 1862 where he built a successful wholesale grocery business.

In 1870, Cossitt purchased several hundred acres of farmland in [[Lyons Township, Cook County, Illinois|Lyons Township]], along the Chicago-Dixon Road, known today as [[Ogden Avenue]] ([[U.S. Highway 34]]). Ogden Avenue, on the site of a defunct Native American trail, was also referred to as the "Old Plank Road". Planks were often stolen by settlers to be used as building material, which made traveling very bumpy. When the [[Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad]] came to town, La Grange was a milk stop called Hazel Glen. A few miles to the south, through present-day [[Willow Springs, Illinois|Willow Springs]], the [[Illinois and Michigan Canal]] had emerged as a major shipping corridor, connecting Chicago and the [[Great Lakes]] with the [[Illinois River|Illinois]] and [[Mississippi River|Mississippi]] rivers.

Cossitt set out to build the ideal suburban village – laying out streets, planting trees, donating property for churches and schools, and building quality homes for sale between $2,000–$8000 USD.<ref>{{cite news |title=Early History of La Grange |url=http://www.lagrangehistory.org/history/early-history-of-la-grange/ |newspaper=La Grange Area Historical Society |publisher=La Grange Historical Society}}</ref> He also placed [[liquor]] restrictions in the land deeds he sold to prevent the village from becoming a [[bar (establishment)|saloon]] town.

When Cossitt began his development, the area was served by a post office known as Kensington. But upon learning of another community already with that name in Illinois, Cossitt decided to name his town in honor of [[La Grange, Tennessee]], where he had been raised as a youth on an uncle's slave plantation. To this day, Kensington remains the name of one of the village's major avenues.

After the [[Great Chicago Fire]] of 1871 destroyed much of that city, thousands of its citizens sought new homes and opportunities far from the city's ills but within a convenient commute. La Grange was ideally situated to accommodate them.

Telephones were first set up by Dr. George Fox in the 1880s for quick communication between his home office and a drug store, enabling him to order prescriptions to be delivered by buggy in a moment's notice. Growing to 52 lines in 1894, it increased twofold to 120 by the next year, and surged to 2,346 by 1921<ref name="LGCentBook"/> (36 percent of the population at the time).

There was a large spike in population is the 1880s and 1890s as the village grew from just over 500 to nearly 4,000 residents, over 600% growth in twenty years. The population continued to grow steadily through the 1960s, peaking at 17,814 according to the [[1970 United States census|1970 census]].  The population declined slightly in the 1970s and 1980s, and has been relatively stable since then.