Place:Downers Grove, DuPage, Illinois, United States

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NameDowners Grove
TypeVillage
Coordinates41.791°N 88.015°W
Located inDuPage, Illinois, United States
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Downers Grove is a village in Downers Grove and Lisle Townships, DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 48,724 at the 2000 census,[1] with an official estimated population of 49,250 in 2008.

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History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Downers Grove was founded in 1832 by Pierce Downer, a religious evangelist from New York. Its other early settlers included the Blodgett, Curtiss, and Carpenter families. The original settlers were mostly migrants from the Northeastern United States and Northern Europe. The first schoolhouse was built in 1844.

During the American Civil War, 119 soldiers from Downers Grove served in the Union Army; at least one of these was interred in the cemetery of Richards's. There was an abolitionist presence in the village, and some of the older homes are thought to have been stops on the Underground Railroad.

The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was extended from Aurora to Chicago through Downers Grove in 1862, boosting its population. The town was incorporated in March 1873. Its somewhat unusual spelling ("Apostrophe-free since 1873") remains a minor historical mystery.


In April 1947 the wreck of a Burlington Railroad Twin Cities Zephyr passenger train killed three people, including the engineer. The streamliner struck a large tractor which had fallen from a freight train and two passenger cars crashed through a wall of the Main Street Station.

The construction of two major toll roads along the village's northern and western boundaries, I-355 in 1989 and what is now referred to as I-88 in 1958, facilitated its access to the rest of Chicago metropolitan area. Downers Grove has developed into a bustling Chicago suburb with many diverse businesses, including the headquarters for Rossi Furniture, FTD, Sara Lee, Arrow Gear Magnetrol, Dover, TMK IPSCO and Luxury tour operator, Abercrombie & Kent.

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