. . . 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. |
Fox River Looking North into Downtown Carpentersville
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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. |
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For the next hundred years, Carpentersville didn't grow as rapidly as other Fox Valley communities which had more direct rail connections to Chicago.
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| 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 (above).
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Today, Carpentersville is the largest community in Dundee Township.
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