Village of Wilmette history

In 1874, the Village of Gross Point was incorporated with a population of approximately 300 people.

The Gross Point Village Hall, which now houses the Wilmette Historical Museum, was built in 1896.

A business district extended two blocks east and west of the Chicago & North Western Railroad depot along West Railroad Avenue (Green Bay Road). A Carnegie Free Library (built in 1905) stood at Wilmette and Park Avenues and a Village Hall stood at the corner of Wilmette Avenue and Central Avenue.

To administer this public land, the Park Board was established in 1908.

In 1910, the Northwestern Elevated Electric Railroad replaced the CM & St Paul line, making electric train service to Chicago or Milwaukee available for the first time from the east side of the Village.

Annexation of land to Wilmette began in 1912 and continued throughout the first half of the century.

In April of 1919, with its neighbor to the east a burgeoning suburb and the passage of the Prohibition (18th) Amendment further impacting village businesses, Gross Point citizens voted to dissolve their municipal government.

It was not until 1923, the year the Gross Point Village Hall was finally sold to pay village debts, that the first steps toward dissolution were taken, however.

The present Village of Wilmette is distinct among North Shore communities because it was created by the 1924 merger of two older villages, Wilmette and Gross Point.

The immigrants established a community known as Gross Point, which was annexed by Wilmette in 1926.

A lack of zoning restrictions had encouraged the development of entertainment establishments that were open on Sunday, but a 1932 fire had destroyed the strip as neighboring fire departments refused to assist the unincorporated area.

His wife, Archange Chevalier Ouilmette (see painting by George Lusk, 1934) was a member of the Potawatomi tribe.

The most controversial annexation came in 1942, when Wilmette laid claim to “No Man's Land,” an unincorporated strip located on the northern border of the village.

The Edens Expressway opened in 1951 and the postwar baby boom brought rapid change to west Wilmette.

The village is also home to the Baha'i House of Worship (1953), the first such temple to be built in North America.

The area did not regain commercial success until it opened in 1968 as the Plaza del Lago shopping center.