It was 1673 when French explorers Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette traveled south on the Mississippi River. The men tracked a fretwork of waterways that led them to the Gulf of Mexico, the river`s source.
On their return trip, Joliet and Marquette paddled birchbark canoes up the Illinois River, portaged between the Des Plaines and Chicago Rivers and eventually reached Lake Michigan. It is believed that as they traveled the junction between the two rivers, the Frenchmen crossed the southeastern tip of what is known as Lyons Township.
If historical accounts are accurate, Joliet and Marquette could have been the first white men to travel near the location of present-day La Grange.
One hundred and fifty-two years later, in 1825, the Erie Canal opened to join the Hudson River with Lake Erie. The event spurred the immigration of Yankee pioneers, people in search of opportunity and new territories ”out west.”
Some settlers migrated by boat, navigating the Ohio, Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. Others traveled by wagon, following Indian and buffalo trails that led them to the northern section of Illinois. A few families traversed an old Indian trail (now Ogden Avenue) and settled in the area that would one day be Lyons Township.
Joseph Vial, his wife, the former Louisa Smith, and their four children were among the first families to arrive in the area. In 1833 Joseph Vial built a log cabin on the property at Plainfield and Wolf Roads, an area inhabited by the Potawatomi.
The Indians were soon to leave the prairie, following the end of the Black Hawk War, but the Vial clan remained. A century after his arrival, Vial and his descendants would be remembered as among those early settlers and citizens who contributed to the growth and development of La Grange.
Jane Vial Battey, 72, is the great-great-granddaughter of Joseph Vial. Battey has a copy of his diary, and from it she has concluded that her ancestor was ”an austere, formal and businesslike man.”
”Joseph was a leader and in favor of progress,” Battey says. ”His log cabin was the first stagecoach stop in the area. The home was also the first post office, and church services were held there, too, as Joseph was one of the founders of the Lyonsville Church.
”They were a religious family. Joseph believed that young people needed a morally stable environment.”
Vial`s diary, kept from 1833 until his death in November, 1853, chronicles daily life on the open prairie. References are made to the weather, the harvesting of turnips, visits to Chicago and the presence of Indians.
Of the Potawatomi, Vial wrote, ”The Indians were never troublesome after we came. I remember old Shabbona, head chief of the Potawatomi. He was about the noblest specimen I ever saw. It was through his efforts that his tribe remained quiet during the Black Hawk War.”
After the Black Hawk War in 1832, the United States government moved all Indians, including the Potawatomi who camped on Vial`s property, out of the area and encouraged settlers to purchase land. By the mid-1830s a new wave of pioneers arrived. Eager and optimistic, they hoped to prosper on the prairie. One such adventurer was 17-year-old Robert Leitch. A farmer from New York State, Leitch arrived in Lyons Township in 1837. A ”neighbor” of Joseph Vial`s, Leitch eventually bought 440 acres of farmland that would one day become part of the village of La Grange.
Credited with being ”the first settler to put a plow in the virgin sod along Naperville Road” (Ogden Avenue), the young man called his property
”Kensington Heights.” Although he farmed the land, Leitch planned to build a community one day on the acreage. Because of financial problems, however, Leitch was forced to sell his property, and in 1870 he moved to Chicago.
About the same time, Franklin Dwight ”F.D.” Cossitt appeared in the region. Cossitt, originally from Granby, Conn., grew up in La Grange, Tenn. At a young age, Cossitt proved himself to be a good businessman, as he acquired land and became a prosperous cotton planter and plantation owner.
In the Civil War, his home, ”Tiara,” was the headquarters of Colonel Dickey, chief of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant`s cavalry staff. But by 1863 Cossitt`s land and life were in danger. His ”Yankee sentiments” didn`t sit well with the Confederate government, and Cossitt fled to Chicago. He established a wholesale grocery business in the city and prospered once again.
In the early 1870s, Cossitt took a look at the area then known as Kensington Heights. He liked the location and bought 600 acres of land, part of which originally belonged to Leitch.
Because the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad ran through the hamlet, there was a mounting influx of people to the area. Cossitt saw those two factors and the availability of land as good reasons to establish a town.
Although his wholesale business was destroyed in 1871 by the Chicago Fire, Cossitt resurrected his investment and at the same time pursued his vision of developing a town. After the land was surveyed, he subdivided the property, laid out streets and built homes. (Today, many Cossitt-built homes are in the town`s historic district.)
In 1873, at age 52, he opened Cossitt and Son, a real estate office. Although no longer at its original site, the business still exists and is owned by Nancy Kenney, Franklin Cossitt`s great-great-granddaughter.
”He (Cossitt) had good business sense,” says Kenney, president of Cossitt & Co. Realtors. ”Along with all of his accomplishments, he had many tragedies. His story is that he never gave up. He kept going.”
Kenney characterizes Cossitt as ”a Southern gentleman with a lot of Yankee stick-to-it-iveness.” A ”proper man,” Cossitt always dressed formally, and Kenney believes that he had a ”strong sense of morality.”
”I think he wanted to establish a wholesome community, a place where people who cared about education and religion could raise their families,”
Kenney says.
Cossitt enhanced his dream of a town that would later be called the
”Garden Spot of Cook County” by planting trees, donating land to be used for schools, churches or parks and placing a liquor restriction on the deeds of the property he sold.
He also renamed the town, christening it ”La Grange” in remembrance of his boyhood home in Tennessee.
In 1879 Cossitt saw his concept materialize when La Grange was incorporated as a village. He was appointed its first president. ”He gave the village a certain direction, a certain character,” Kenney says.
”His background was such that family, education and religion were important, and he wanted to provide an atmosphere where people could pursue those ideals. I think he succeeded because today La Grange is the type of community where those values are very important.”
Because of the foresight of Franklin Cossitt and other early innovators, La Grange entered the final decades of the 19th Century prepared for growth and development. Churches were established and schools were built to accommodate the growing number of families moving into the area.
Lyons Township High School opened its doors in 1889 and commenced its long career as one of the most highly rated high schools in the area.
By the beginning of the 20th Century, 4,000 people lived in La Grange. The town had telephone service, mail delivery, a movie house, a country club and a newspaper. City streets were paved, and an electric trolley ran from the village to 48th and Harrison Streets in Chicago.
In 1905 the first public library opened. Designed after the Newberry Library in Chicago, much of the building`s construction was financed by a grant from Andrew Carnegie.
As the village grew, the Vial family continued to play a part in La Grange`s development. In 1874 Samuel Vial, Joseph and Louisa`s son, gave up farming and built a frame house at what is now the corner of La Grange Road and 47th Street. At the time the village was not incorporated, and Samuel`s home was one of the first to be built in the area.
”He was a religious, civic-minded and morally upstanding man,” Battey says of her great-grandfather. ”During his lifetime he was one of the founding fathers of three churches–all of them within a 6-mile radius of each other. In 1874 he helped establish the Emmanuel (Episcopal) Church.
”He wanted to promote the well-being of the community, and he felt that what they needed at the time was an Episcopal church. Samuel was the only member of the vestry who wasn`t Episcopalian.”
The other churches were the Lyonsville Congregational Church, co-founded with his father, and the First Congregational Church.
After Samuel`s death in 1911, his son Joseph lived in the family home. Owner of Vial Lumber and Coal Co. in La Grange, Joseph also served as the first township school treasurer, an office he held for 41 years.
Battey remembers her grandfather Joseph as ”another hard-working, community-minded man” whose home was always open to friends and family. Many of Battey`s childhood memories center on family celebrations held in the Vial residence.
”The Christmas tree would be on one side of the fireplace, and the whole family would be around,” she remembers. ”There was nothing we didn`t have
–all kinds of food–everything was very lavish.”
Jane Vial married Frederick Battey in 1935, and she chose to have her wedding in the Vial family home. ”I wore my mother`s dress,” Battey adds.
”I walked down that beautiful winding staircase where my father was waiting for me at the bottom. Fred and I were married in front of the fireplace in the parlor.”
Today the 111-year-old Samuel Vial house is owned by the La Grange Area Historical Society. The goal of the society is to ”preserve La Grange`s history,” says Irma Soderberg, 74, charter member of the historical society and a lifelong La Grange resident.
With the acquisition of the Vial house, the hope to find a permanent home for the society was realized, Soderberg says. Now it`s on to the task of restoration.
”What we need,” Soderberg says, ”are more young people who are interested in this kind of thing. They`ll have to take over when we (senior members) can`t do it any longer.”
After World War I, La Grange continued to grow and prosper. Land opened for development, subdivisions cropped up, and the housing industry expanded. In the decade after the war the village experienced its largest increase in population. By 1930 there were 10,103 residents in the village.
Anne Hammons Hunt, 73, was born and reared in the village. She recalls that in the 1920s and `30s ”La Grange wasn`t a farm town,” but rather a
”growing suburb of Chicago.”
”The downtown area had every type of store you could want, and most were family-owned,” Anne says. ”We had everything including a hotel, which is still open (Hotel Norrland). I remember the drugstore where we used to buy our school supplies. The books were set out on ice cream tables–a table for each grade.”
Carson Hunt, 75, Anne`s husband, describes La Grange in earlier days as
”a family town,” a place where people grew up, married, settled down and reared children of their own.
According to Carson, the town began ”a slow but steady increase in growth” in the mid-1930s when General Motors opened its Electromotive Division in the town. The post-World War II era also brought an influx of people, he says, and that spurred the expansion of schools, churches and health facilities.
”During the war (World War II), it was difficult to find housing in La Grange,” Carson says. ”But after the war things began to blossom. There used to be a family farm on 47th Street, but by the `40s the land was developed and houses went up right and left.”
Today La Grange is home to 15,681 residents, according to the 1980 census. Founding father Franklin Dwight Cossitt would be proud of the town`s 7 neighborhood parks, 8 public schools, 3 parochial schools and 24 churches that represent 16 denominations.
His vision of a stable, well-rounded community seems to be realized as residents still hold family, education and religion high on their list of priorities.
Also in line with Cossitt`s plan for an economically viable town is the community`s effort to revitalize La Grange`s business district. Kenney says the idea is to ”promote what we have here and encourage residents to use the village`s shopping, business and recreational facilities.”
Like many vintage suburbs, La Grange is a pleasant mix of the old and new. Contemporary buildings appear throughout the village and border the Historic District, an area Kenney describes as ”one of the town`s best assets.”
”A major portion of La Grange is on the National Register (of Historic Places),” she says. ”And that attracts a lot of people. Because I`m in the real estate business, I see who`s moving in.
”Younger couples are buying the older homes and renovating them. They seem to have an appreciation for La Grange`s heritage and an interest in its history.”
