The Origins of La Grange

Incorporated in 1879, the Village of La Grange was the dream of Franklin Dwight Cossitt, born in Granby, Connecticut and raised in Tennessee, who moved to Chicago in 1862 and built a successful wholesale grocery business.

In 1870, Cossitt purchased several hundred acres of farmland in Lyons Township, along the Chicago-Dixon Road, known today as Ogden Avenue (US Hwy 34).

When the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad came to town, La Grange was a milk stop called Hazel Glen. A few miles to the south, through present day Willow Springs, the Illinois & Michigan Canal had emerged as a major shipping corridor, connecting Chicago and the Great Lakes with the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.

Cossitt set out to build the ideal suburban village — laying out streets, planting trees, donating property for churches and schools, and building quality homes for sale. He also placed liquor restrictions in the land deeds he sold to prevent the village from becoming a saloon town.

When Cossitt began his development, the area was served by a post office known as Kensington. But upon learning of another community already with that name in Illinois, Cossitt decided to name his town in honor of La Grange, Tennessee, where he had been raised as a youth on an uncle's cotton farm.

After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed much of that city, thousands of its citizens sought new homes and opportunities far from the city's ills but within a convenient commute. La Grange was ideally situated to accommodate them.