|
Photographs provided by the Dundee Township Historical Society.
 |
From its beginning 172 years ago, the Village of
Carpentersville was a working person's town. Yet it was a flood
which delayed a family traveling through that brought this
Village about. |
| In the Spring of 1837 Charles Carpenter and his brother
Daniel were on their way to the Rock River when their ox-drawn
prairie schooner couldn't ford the swollen Fox River. So, the
brothers pitched a tent and stayed put to raise their families.
A log cabin came later on the river's east bank just above what
is now Main Street. |
 |
 |
They called their town Carpenters' Grove and the name held
until 1851 when Carpentersville became official. During this
time Charles' son, Julius built himself a commercial empire. By
1850 Julius had opened the Village's first store and built its
first two-story building. The Village kept booming with industry
until the early 1900's thanks to the ingenuity of the Carpenter
family. |
| For the next hundred years, Carpentersville didn't grow as
rapidly as other Fox Valley communities which had more direct
rail connections to Chicago. |
 |
 |
Until the 1950's Carpentersville consisted of a street grid
along the Fox River centered around Main Street, which was the
only highway bridge across the Fox River between Algonquin and
Dundee. In the mid-1950s, the Meadowdale subdivision was built
and annexed to Carpentersville with the Meadowdale Shopping
Center following. By 1960, there were 54 stores in the shopping
center with Wieboldt's as its anchor. |
| Carpentersville was once connected with Elgin and the rest
of the Fox Valley by a network of electric trolley cars (right).
|
 |
| |
|
Today, Carpentersville is the largest community in Dundee Township.
|
