The northern gateway to Chicago, Evanston takes pride in its history as an independent city. Full of parks and gardens, it makes the best of its marvelous location on the shores of Lake Michigan, offering its 75,000 residents a home where community involvement and friendly neighbors are valued. Access to the attractions of the greater Chicago area is quick and convenient, but Evanston offers so much in the way of shopping, dining, cultural, and sporting amenities that it’s just as much fun to stay home.
Location
Evanston is a town in Cook County, Illinois, just outside the northern limits of Chicago, on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Geography/Terrain
Evanston is flat, originally prairie country on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Distance to 3 closest major cities
Evanston is 2 miles from Skokie, 11 miles from Des Plaines, and 14 miles from Chicago.
Jobs
Excellent transportation systems that connect Evanston to neighboring residential and commercial areas and to all areas of Chicago ensure that its citizens enjoy access to the widest range of employment options. Extensive development in nearby Lincoln Park and Rogers Park has opened up many new jobs, especially in the construction and retail sectors.
Housing
Its superb location on Lake Michigan and easy access to public transportation connecting to the greater Chicago area make Evanston a very popular residential choice. The city boasts a wide range of residential types, including distinctive historic residences on the lake shore, a variety of older single family homes and a rapidly-growing number of condominium buildings, with prices covering the range from very affordable to several million dollars.
Parks/Sports/Recreation/Golf
With over 75 parks within its boundaries, Evanston’s citizens never have to go far to find a place to exercise, play sports, or just relax in quiet, natural surroundings. The Ladd Memorial Arboretum is one such area which follows the course of the North Shore Channel for three quarters of a mile. Since the first tree was planted there in 1959 the Arboretum has been steadily developed into an oasis of natural beauty in the heart of the city. Its attractions are enhanced by the Evanston Ecology Center, which provides natural history classes covering areas such as plant identification and animal study for children and beginning naturalists.
In addition to Evanston’s extensive amenities, neighboring Wilmette’s Gilson Park and Centennial Family Aquatic Center offer marvelous sport and recreation facilities. The Park itself consists of almost 60 acres of beautiful lakefront for family picnics, cycling, volleyball, soccer, tennis, outdoor ice skating and many other year-round activities, while there is swimming and sailing in the lake. The associated Gilson Aquatics Camp offers instruction in activities such as canoeing, kayaking, snorkeling, and sailing on small yachts, beach volleyball, and motor boating. During the summer months the Starlight Theater offers outdoor performances in the unique Wallace Bowl.
For over 75 years the Evanston Art Center has been helping citizens develop their artistic and creative talents through its regular exhibitions of the work of local and regional artists and through the hundreds of classes and courses it offers each year. The Center has a special emphasis on cultivating the creativity in local young people, offering free outreach programs and holding several major exhibitions of young people’s work annually.
Incredibly there are more than 75 golf courses within 20 miles of Evanston, and 20 within six miles, so there is always an interesting and challenging place to play. Right in the heart of the city, the Peter N. Jans Golf Course offers challenging golf on 18 very short holes where accuracy is important and every shot counts. The Evanston Golf Club in Skokie and the Westmoreland Country Club in Wilmette are excellent private courses, while the Weber Park Course is a nine hole municipal course, which offers excellent value.
Special Attractions/Events
Built in Evanston in 1973, the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian is the only museum in the Chicago area that focuses exclusively on the history, culture and arts of North American native peoples. Its displays of artifacts and rotating exhibits, the result of almost 60 years of collecting, explore the lives of the Native American cultures of the Woodlands, Plains, Great Lakes, Southwest, Northwest Coast and Arctic from prehistoric times to the present day. In addition to videos and audiotapes and a library of over 5000 books and periodicals that are made available to visitors, each thematic exhibit in the museum features a "touching table" where visitors can handle artifacts and raw materials like snakeskin, caribou and buffalo hide, birch bark, and turquoise to connect at a tactile level with the lives of Native Americans.
Located in a beautifully restored mansion in the grounds of Grosse Point Lighthouse, amidst lovely butterfly and wildflower gardens tended by the Garden Club of Evanston, the Evanston Art Center is a haven for new and established artists. It offers over 90 regular classes and outreach programs for children and adults and exhibits new works in an array of media, including ceramics, drawing and painting, fiber, jewelry, metal and stone sculpture, photography and printmaking.
Since its completion in 1953 more than five million people of all faiths have visited the Baha'i House of Worship in Wilmette, just a few minutes north of Evanston, to enjoy the peace and quietude of its graceful architecture and beautiful gardens. A place for quiet prayer and meditation that is open to everyone, it was conceived and built over a period of forty years, with a central dome rising 135 feet from the main floor. The harmony of its lines and its lovely ornamentation lend this special place a deep serenity which is felt and enjoyed by all who visit.
Interesting Facts/Historic Buildings and Places
Founded in the 1850’s, Evanston enjoyed a huge economic and population boom after the Civil War. Perhaps partly to ease the social effects of rapid growth the town strongly supported the prohibition movement. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which became a world-wide movement, was founded in Evanston in 1874 by Francis Willard, and about the same time a law was passed prohibiting the sale of liquor within four miles of the Northwestern University campus.
The house in which Francis Willard lived for 30 years from 1865 still stands in Evanston and is a registered National Historic Landmark, open to visitors who want to glimpse something of the life and work of this remarkable woman. Francis Willard achieved significant national and international influence not only through her support for temperance but also as an active proponent of prison, education, and labor reform and voting, economic and religious rights for women.
Another of Evanston’s many stately and historic buildings; the Charles Gates Dawes House was built in 1894-5 on a two-acre lakeshore site and is now the home of the Evanston Historic Society. This massive three-and-a- half story house is designed in the style of French chateaux and boasts twenty-five rooms, six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and eleven fireplaces. Much of the interior is paneled in oak, with a magnificent oak stairway, beautiful ornamental plaster work, marble mantelpieces, and a musicians' gallery in the dining room.
Standing 113 feet high the Grosse Point Lighthouse has been an Evanston landmark since 1873. Designed to guide vessels into Chicago Harbor, it was built at a time when Chicago had a greater volume of shipping than ports like New York and San Francisco. Several wrecks had already occurred off Grosse Point when in September 1860 a passenger steamer collided with a lumber schooner in the early morning darkness. The steamer sank, and hundreds of passengers jumped or were thrown into the water. As day broke Evanston residents watched helplessly from the shore as survivors battled tremendous waves in their struggle to reach safety. Between three and four hundred were drowned, and thirteen years later Congress finally approved the construction of the lighthouse, after long pressure from the concerned citizens of Evanston.
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