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the history of wilmette<br />
The village is named for Archange Ouilmette, a woman of French<br />
and Potawatomi heritage. With her husband, Antoine, she and<br />
her family moved north from the first settlement in Chicago<br />
to take up residence in a cabin by Lake Michigan on 1280 acres that<br />
were granted to her under the Treaty of Prairie du Chien of 1829.<br />
Long after the Ouilmettes had left for Iowa to join their Potawatomie<br />
kin in 1838, the area remained sparsely settled, save for a few hardy<br />
pioneers near the lake and the first families who had begun to farm<br />
the area west of the ridge along which Ridge Road runs today. From<br />
these early settlements sprang two very different communities: the<br />
Village of Wilmette, incorporated in 1872, and the Village of Gross<br />
Point, incorporated in 1874. The first was founded by mostly Anglo-<br />
Protestant settlers from the East who hoped to develop the village<br />
as a commuter suburb, while the second, to the west of Ridge Road,<br />
was comprised of mostly Roman Catholic, German-speaking farmers,<br />
craftsmen, and shop-owners. Their histories formally merged in the 1920s when Gross Point was annexed by Wilmette, but each of the<br />
two areas has long retained a distinctive character.<br />
As you explore Wilmette, you will find many places whose colorful and intriguing histories are intertwined with the larger history of the<br />
village itself: the 1873 depot, rescued and moved in the early 1970s and now a restaurant; Roemer Park, the local Little League’s 1950s<br />
ballpark; the amazing Baha’i Temple, which took decades to build; Wilmette Harbor and Gillson Park, both by-products of a remarkable<br />
engineering project undertaken over 100 years ago; Plaza del Lago, in what was once the controversial area known as No Man’s Land; the<br />
brick streets of Wilmette, laid down around 1900 and restored during the Great Depression. The details of all of these histories, and of a<br />
great many others, can be found and explored at the Wilmette Historical Museum, which is itself in a storied place, the former Gross Point<br />
Village Hall, 609 Ridge Road.<br />
the history of wilmette<br />
The name NSAGO was established over 50 years ago as a solo practice.<br />
We have evolved into a group of ten doctors and midwives who provide<br />
comprehensive women’s health care to the greater Chicago and suburban<br />
areas. The group has expertise and experience in all aspects of obstetrics<br />
and gynecology, including well woman care and annual exams, complete<br />
preconception, prenatal and postpartum services, adolescent health care<br />
and contraception counseling and major gynecologic, outpatient and<br />
minimally invasive surgery.<br />
CALL FOR AN APPOINTMENT<br />
WITH ONE OF OUR PROVIDERS<br />
328 LINDEN AVE., WILMETTE, IL 60091<br />
847.475.1224<br />
2550 COMPASS RD., UNIT J., GLENVIEW, IL 60026<br />
847.998.9600<br />
www.nsago.com<br />
wilmettekenilworth.com | Wilmette/Kenilworth Chamber of Commerce • 847-251-3800 | 17
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