(Based on information from Riverside Then & Now this is not accurate. The marker and book show this is the site of the Robest log home.)

In 1830, David Laughton became the first permanent resident of Riverside, and he established a tavern and an inn on this spot. Riverside did not have a name yet, but it was a place of passage for travelers because of its easy access to the Des Plaines River.

There is no waterway between Lake Michigan and the Des Plaines River. So, for a long time, the Indians of the Chicago area, the Potowatamis, had been used to canoeing from Lake Michigan down the Chicago River, and had then used this area as a portage, that is a crossing place, where they walked and carried their canoes to the Des Plaines River. Between the Chicago and the Des Plaines Rivers, the distance where they needed to walk and carry their canoes, was about 2.5 miles. It was not considered a long hike in those days!

Father Marquette

The first white explorers in the midwest also used the portage of Riverside. Their names were Louis Joliet, a fur trader and soldier from Canada, and Father Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary. They were looking for a waterway to connect Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. Father Marquette spent a whole winter in this area and the Indians helped him build a shelter and find food.

Louis Joliet

In 1868, an Eastern businessman named Emery Childs, along with seven associates, formed the Riverside Improvement Company. They bought 1,600 acres of land on the site of the Aux Plaines Settlement, by the Des Plaines River. The land was part of a farm owned by David Gage and was linked to Chicago via a double-tracked railroad, called the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad. Most villages develop around houses, shops and businesses, but here in Riverside, the parks were designed first, streets were laid out, and construction of houses began afterwards. Riverside became the first planned suburb in the country.

To add prestige to their undertaking, the Riverside Improvement Company asked landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and his partner Calvert Vaux to design the new village. They were only too happy to oblige. They began by setting apart 700 acres of the best land for public parks. An Oak and Hickory tree forest was turned into the Scottswood Common, and along with the Long Common, 41 small triangular parks were created at the intersections of streets throughout the village.

Calvert Vaux

Forty miles of curving streets were laid out. As opposed to the grid pattern of parallel and perpendicular streets typical of American cities, instead Olmsted designed the streets to follow the bends in the river and the contours of the land. Thousands of trees and bushes were planted to complete the park-like atmosphere, thus the common reference to Riverside as "a village in a park."



Frederick Law Olmsted

Before becoming a landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmstead tried the life of a sailor, farmer and a book editor.

Apprenticed as a civil engineer, he became interested in experimental self-sufficient farming. He also became involved in the early campaigns to save Yosemite Valley and Niagara Falls. He was one of the first men to advocate a system of national parks. He had walked across Great Britain and admired the parks and suburban developments created by the English. He also walked across the South of the United States before the Civil War and subsequently wrote four books on the pre-Civil War South and Southwest.

In 1857, he won the drawing contest for the design of Central Park in New York City. Although he had no previous experience with landscape architecture, he was named superintendent of Central Park and with his partner and friend, Calvert Vaux, he designed a recreational area in the midst of the city which soon attracted worldwide attention.

After completing the Central Park project, he became Executive Secretary of the U.S. Sanitary Commission which was responsible for all health-related questions in the Union Army of the Civil War.

Olmstead then became a land manager in California.

In his middle forties, he finally settled into a landscaping career with his friend Calvert Vaux, and designed 17 major parks. In 1868, he was in Riverside working for Emery Childs. Olmstead and Vaux were given complete freedom to design the new suburb.

Hand Drawn Map of Riverside

William LeBaron Jenney (1832-1907) (mostly from a biography by Dorothy Richardson Gross, written in the 1970’s for the F.L. Olmsted Society)

William LeBaron Jenney was born in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, was educated at the Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and then at the Ecole de Arts et Manufactures in Paris, France. While in Paris, he introduced pumpkin pie into a Paris cafe. He shoed the cafe’s owner/cook how to prepare the filling for the pie, forgot to mention that it was baked in a crust, and saw it served in a soup tureen instead!

Jenney’s first engineering job was under Colonel De Russey in southern Mexico. One day, the colonel was sitting tilted back in a camp chair, when a pig running wild upset him and spilled him in the dust. The colonel was so embarrassed by the incident that he soon resigned his post leaving Jenney in charge. Jenney used to say that, from that time on, he always touched his hat to a pig when he saw one.

During the Civil War, he was a first lieutenant of Volunteer Engineers, serving under Grant and General Lee Wallace. Lacking fuel to fire a boat, he used ham and bacon for fuel and managed to move the troops as he had been ordered by Grant. When the Secretary of the Treasury became angry with him because he had wasted all that meat, Jenney declared: "I will burn every ham and side of bacon in my commissary warehouse to win a battle any day!" After the war, Jenney spent a year making a map of Sherman’s campaigns and troop movements during the war.

In 1867, he married Elizabeth Cobb in Cleveland.

His first commissions in Chicago were, surprisingly, not buildings but parks. They were done in the "jardin anglais" fashion, with meandering paths, lakes and picturesque bridges. They show Jenney’s love of nature which found a wonderful outlet in Riverside, the village in a park.

From 1876 to 1880, he was a professor of architecture in Michigan. In 1880, he returned to Riverside. From 1881 to 1884, he served as village trustee.

Besides the parrot’s cage, Jenney’s first-hand knowledge of the bamboo frame structures of the Philippines and East Indies has been credited as the course for his skyscraper construction.

In 1898, Mrs. Jenney died. In 1906, Jenney’s health started to file. He moved to southern California where he died in 1907.

Many architects owe their progress and careers to his kind support. These include Martin Roche, Louis Sullivan, V. Van Doren Shaw, Daniel Burnham and Williams Holabird. Jenney was a kind and jolly man, fond of good eating, a lover of good stories and himself a good storyteller.

Most Villages develop around houses, shops and businesses, but in Riverside, the parks were designed first, streets were laid out, and construction of houses began afterwards. Riverside was a planned community.

In 1868, 38-year-old Emery Childs, an Eastern businessman, formed the Riverside Improvement Company with 7 associates. Together, they bought 1,600 acress of land across the Des Plaines River. The area had an oak and hickory forest; it was well drained and relatively free of mosquitoes and lake flies. Most importantly, since 1864, the area had become linked to Chicago via a double-tracked railroad, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The land was part of a farm owned by David Gage. It provided food for Mr. Gage’s Hotel Sherman in Chicago and had plenty of livestock and a racetrack with a grandstand. It was a "gentleman’s seat in the country." The Riverside Improvement Company turned it into the first planned suburb in the country." The Riverside Improvement Company turned it into the first planned suburb in the country.

To add prestige to their undertaking, the Riverside Improvement Company asked Frederick Law Olmsted and his partner Calvert Vaux to develop the new village. This was a dream come true for Olmsted who was eager to create a community surrounded with greenery, away from the noise, pollution, diseases, and crowded condition of the city and at the same time endowed with the amenities of the city.

Olmsted enhanced The Rural Advantages of Riverside:

• 700 acres of the best land were set apart for public parks; the oak and hickory forest was turned into Scottswood Common; another common, the Long Common was created, along with 41 small triangular parks located at the intersections of streets throughout the village.
• 40 miles of curving streets were laid out. The grid pattern of parallel and perpendicular streets, typical of American cities, was rejected. Instead, the streets follows the bends in the river and the contours of the land. Thousands of trees and bushes were planted to complete the park-like atmosphere. Trees lined the streets. People were also required to build their houses at least 30 feet away from the sidewalks and to plant 2 trees between their houses and the street so as to hide large structures.

Olmsted did not sacrifice Urban Advantages in Riverside:

• The roads were provided with good drainages so as to avoid the mud which was still a problem in downtown Chicago. They were made of gravel with a solid base flattened by a 15-ton steam roller especially imported from Europe. Also, streets were designed to be a few inches below the level of lawns, so that they would remain hidden from the view of any homeowner out on his front porch. Thus, noise from horses and carriages would be minimized and no one would have to look at the road apples dropped by horses along the way.
• Water, gas and sewage lines were provided for each lot. Street lights were installed. Someone turned them on every night. Fireplugs were also installed along the streets.
• A church was built in 1870 (Presbyterian) and another one in 1883 (St. Paul’s Episcopal). Schools were constructed.
• A 3-story commercial building was erected to house shops and services (the Arcade Building), and a 124-room hotel was built along the river, across from today’s town hall, to attract visitors and encourage Sunday boating excursions on the Des Plaines River.
• Olmsted also planned a divided road to downtown Chicago. The inside lanes would be reserved for horses and carriages, the outside lanes restricted to freight traffic. Trees would line the road and rest areas with fountains would be provided. No industrial plant or large unsightly building with "dead walls" would be tolerated along the drive. Unfortunately, this project was never implemented.

Gross Expenditures were expected to be one and a half million dollars. They were much higher. Also, after the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871, businessmen put their money into rebuilding the big city, not into started a little village. The Riverside Improvement Company went bankrupt. But Riverside survived and continued to grow.

Architect: William LeBaron Jenney, 1870

Throughout Riverside, Jenney chose to build structures in the Gothic style of architecture in order to give the new village the atmosphere of a small German medieval town.

The style of a building is like its personality: It shows what is unique about the building but also how it is related to a whole family of other buildings. The Water Tower is unique, but it is related to other Gothic buildings because of its steep roof, pointed arcades and windows, and the intricately decorated brackets under the roof eaves. In Western Europe, the Gothic style of architecture was used mostly for churches, castles and large public structures. In the United States, in the 1870s, it had become fashionable to use it for private homes as well as public buildings.

The top of the tower was made of wood. It burned in 1913 and had to be rebuilt with bricks, which are now painted white.

The Museum of Historical Society was originally one of the two pump houses for the tower (the other pump house is still used as a pump house and is also the site of the Riverside Recreation Department). It, too, was designed in the Gothic style with lovely pointed windows. In it are stored pictures, drawings and articles about the history of Riverside. Go inside on a Saturday, and the person in attendance will give you any available information on the history of your house.

The inside of the museum was restored in 1975 by Riverside architect Mike Wimmer. He built storage units along the walls, designed an adjustable temperature and humidity control system to protect the documents housed in the museum, and created a new lighting system with both indirect and spot lighting. The showpiece of the museum is a Tiffany glass chandelier which used to be hung in the now razed Babson House, one of the few homes designed by Louis Sullivan.

Historically, the commuter train line had a great deal of importance for the development of Riverside as a suburb of Chicago. In 1868, Riverside was the first stop from Chicago. Thanks to the railroad, which was then called the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, businessmen could afford to settle their families here, in the country practically, and still work downtown. Olmsted and Vaux had planned a parkway from Riverside to Chicago. But the project never implemented and the railroad line remained the only convenient connection between Chicago and Riverside.

In 1901, the old railroad station was sold to make room for a new one. The older building had to be moved across town. The movers had problems with the winding streets and got the old station building stuck against the overhanging branches of a large tree. They asked the village officials permission to cut down the branches that stood in their way. The request was denied. The old railroad station had to be dismantled to be moved. The trees were left unhurt. This shows how important trees are for the people of this village.

Arcade Building 1 Riverside Road Architect: Frederick C. Withers, 1871

This group of buildings was the first shopping center in a suburb, and it was conveniently located next to the railroad station.

Like all the early buildings at Riverside whose construction was supervised by William LeBaron Jenney, it had a medieval look. It was designed in the Gothic style of architecture. Note the pointed arches and the stained glass windows in the upper sections of the shop windows.

Also of interest (but definitely not neo-Gothic) are the Mansard windows in the roof. Mansard windows are a French tax evacuation feature which was devised when the French government decided to tax people on the number of windows they had below the roof line. People started putting windows over the roof line.

This building has the look of an old castle. A rather romantic structure in the Richardsonian-Romanesque style of architecture.

Riverside Public Library
1 Burling Road
Architects: Connor, O’Connor & Martin, 1930

This is a Gothic structure, with stone walls. Note the gargoyles on the top of the roof. In the Middle Ages, gargoyles were used a rainspouts. On the facades of churches, they also served the symbolic function of warding off evil spirits. The two gargoyles of the library are purely decorative. They are reproductions of gargoyles from the Cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris in France.

Presbyterian Churh
116 Barrypoint Road
Architect: Frederick C. Withers, 1872

This is a Gothic building, with stone walls, a high-pitched roof and steep gables. Note the pointed arched entryway. The belfry has a stone base, timber top and a thin roofed steeple. The bell inside the belfry is clearly visible behind the pointed arched openings.

Central School
61 Woodside Road
Archited: C.F. Whittlesey, 1896

Central School was designed by a New York architect, C.F. Whittlesey in the Richardsonian style, that is, the neo-Romanesque style of architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886). Richardsonian structures are generally built of stones and/or bricks. They display characteristics of medieval castles, as they were reviewed by 19th century artists and poets: They have a massive appearance, several stories and steep roofs, and they include turrets or towers, arched windows and doorways, and various ornamentations such as gargoyles.

For additional information on Central School, see the Cultural Arts folder on "Central School," which was prepared for first graders.

104 Scottswood Road
Sears prefabricated house
Early 1900s

This house was ordered through a Sears catalog. Prefabricated parts of the house were brought to Riverside by train and assembled on the lot. Different types of houses were available through mail orders. This home has a Prairie style look which was very popular in the early 1900s:

• It has a hipped roof, that is, a roof which is sloped on all four sides, and it has long roof overhangs.
• The walls are covered with stucco, a kind of plaster which is sprayed on the walls and gives them an uneven texture.

118 Scottswood Road
Queen Anne house, late 1880s

This is a two-story with a full attic lit by dormers and a window in the front gable. The roof is a gambrel roof, that is, it has two slopes with different pitches. Note the eyebrow window on the roof ("oeil de boeuf" in French). Note also the little walkway on the right of the roof.

• What materials is the facade made of? Shingles, that is, thin pieces of wood laid in overlapping rows.

The house also has a half conical turret in the front. Note the colors used to paint the outside. The house is a lovely "painted lady."

124 Scottwood Road
L.H. Schermerhorn Residence
Architect: William LeBaron Jenney, 1870

This home is a Swiss Gothic cottage. Except for the addition of a front porch, the house has remained unchanged structurally since it was built. It has been beautifully maintained by its owners.

Mr. Schermerhorn, for whom it was built, was the architect and civil engineer in charge of all the public works planned by the Riverside Improvement Company. He was responsible for the construction of all the roads, walkways, drainage and sewage systems, and all the plantings of trees and bushes in the community.

At the railroad station, we noticed that horizontal lines can be emphasized. Here, which kinds of lines are emphasized? Horizontal or vertical?

Vertical lines are emphasized with the vertical board and batten siding. "Battens" are narrow wood strips covering wider boards used as vertical or horizontal siding.

Does the vertical board and batten make the house look larger or smaller? It makes it look taller and narrower.

Gothic characteristics of the house include:

• The high-pitched roof;
• The pointed windows on the second floor;
• The elaborate wood trims: Over the windows, on the brackets used to support the roof overhangs, on the bargeboards, too. The bargeboard is the carved board hanging along the projecting end of a sloping roof. This house has very rich detailing.

This is a very elegant Victorian house with a beautiful symmetrical rhythm in the windows of the two stories. Note also the double entry door.

144 Scottswood Road
Clarence L. Cross Residence
Architect: maybe William LeBaron Jenney, circa 1871

Here is another Swiss Gothic home with a beautiful wrap-around porch.

The lot was purchased by Alfred J. Cross, a wealthy contractor, inventor and lumberman, for his son Clarence L. Cross, who has also become a wealthy lumberman. Both father and son served as presidents of Riverside in the early days of the village.

Is the siding on this house the same as the siding on the house at 124 Scottswood? No, this is horizontal (not vertical) clapboard siding.

Note also the porte-cochere on the side of the house and the carriage house in the back. The porte-cochere was intended for the loading and unloading of passengers in coaches. People in coaches were seated much higher than automobile riders. When the house was first designed, there were no steps on the side of the porch, but instead a little gate. People who were going on a jaunt in their coach would open the little gate and step directly into the coach that was waiting for them.

This house has magnificent woodwork inside and splendid stained glass windows in the stairs. The motif of the sun appears in both the stained glass and the front of the carriage house.

156 Scottswood Road
Residence of Mr. and Mrs. Charles O’Gregg
Architect: maybe William LeBaron Jenney, circa 1871

This house was built by Alfred J. Cross on the 2nd of 3 lots he had purchased in Riverside. It was the residence of Mr. Cross’ daughter and her family.

The house originally looked similar to the Clarence Cross residence next door, both outside with its Victorian ornamental detailing and inside with its exquisite woodwork. But this house underwent extensive remodeling around 1913.

The reconstruction was done in keeping with the Prairie style of architecture which had then become fashionable:

• The Victorian trims were removed;
• The exterior surfaces were stuccoed;
• A new, flatter roof and new dormers were added.

The remodeling architect tried to make the house appear less high and to emphasize horizontal lines. The wood pillars of the porch were bricked, and decorative white bricks were added at the top of the pillars to cut down the height of the pillars and introduce new horizontal accents.

166 Scottswood Road
Alfred J. Cross Residence
Circa 1870

This double lot was the best site on the whole street. The house was built on a slight rise in the land (actually, the highest spot in all of Cook County!) and overlooks the park across the street.

It has a steep roof which identifies it with the Gothic style.

Notice the portes-cochere on the side and the carriage house in the back. Carriage houses were barns for horses and storage areas for coaches; also, they were often living quarters for the servants of the household. The servants lived upstairs. Hay for the horses was also stored on the second floor. Notice the window-door in the gable and the pulley above the window-door. The pulley was used to haul the hay upstairs.

300 Scottswood Road
Avery Coonley Estate
Additional information on Wright’s homes:

Wright’s Prairie style is decidedly "modern." Wright wanted no imitation from the architecture of past generations. The homes built by Wright display the following features:

• They are carefully suited to their setting.
• They are built on a slap of cement with no basement.
• They have low, horizontal lines.
• They have broad, overhanging eaves.
• They have bands of leaded glass windows and corner windows. Those long stretches of glass turn the outside landscape into a part of the interior house.
• They have an open plan with a central fireplace and rooms opening up to each other (no door from the living room to the dining room, for example). Each room flows into the next.
• They display natural material unadorned (example: Roman bricks on the chimneys, oak woodwork stained, not painted, no wallpaper).
• They use the latest mechanical equipment.
• The furniture is in harmony with the architecture. It is often built in (cabinets, benches under windows, etc.)

Avery Coonley, for whom the Coonley Estate was built, was a wealthy industrialist; his wife also came from a wealthy family. Both were very well educated. He graduated from Harvard University, she graduated from Vassar. Both were musical: He played the violin, she played the piano. Both were associated with the Christian Science Church. They were very actively involved in political and social affairs. He was a trustee of R-B High School among other things. She was a leader in the fight for women’s suffrage and a prominent educator.

This is another house built in the Gothic style of architecture, and yet it is very different from the other Gothic houses on our walk. The style of a house is what gives it an air of belonging to a family of other houses. It does not mean that all the houses of the same family look alike.

This house is T-shaped. The stem of the T faces the street and is surrounded on all three sides by a veranda. This is a beautifully symmetrical house.

Where is the line of symmetry in the street facade?

The windows are very high, they extend from floor to ceiling.

The solarium on the left is a very recent addition. It complements the house elegantly. Note the wood trim at the top of the solarium which recalls the trim motifs under the eaves of the roof.

281 Bloomingbank Road
Avery Coonley Estate
Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright, 1908

Frank Lloyd Wright was a very famous architect admired worldwide, especially in Japan. This house is a National Historic Landmark.

Wright described this house as "the most successful of my houses" and again as "the best I could do then in the way of a house." Fire almost destroyed the house in 1977, but it was rebuilt almost to its original condition.

This house is only one section of the whole estate built by Frank Lloyd Wright. The original Coonley Estate covered the whole block bounded by Coonley, Scottswood and Bloomingbank Roads. It included:

• The main house (which was divided into 2 separate homes in 1952)
• The coachhouse and stable, a garage and work area
• The servants’ headquarters, a cottage for the coachman, a raised garden and a sunken garden.

In 1913, a gardener’s cottage was also built by two other Prairie architects, Guenzel and Drummon, at 308 Fairbank Road.

Wright was a short man who did not care for high ceilings and steep roofs. He wanted his houses to stay close to the ground, to hung the ground and follow the contours of the land. He wanted them to become integral parts of the landscape. That’s one of the reasons why he carefully hid the front doors of his buildings. Where is the front door of this house?

How did Wright address horizontal lines here? He built long, low structures. Seen from the air, the Coonley Estate originally looked like a series of long dominoes. Wright also designed bands of low windows, and used decorating tiles along the facade to lengthen the house still more.

Note Wright’s "signature:" The urn at the entrance to the driveway. It is a feature of every one of his homes.

253 Bloomingbank Road
Queen Anne house
Circa 1890

Note that this home has a gambrel roof, that is, a roof with two slopes with different pitches. Note also the open porch on the second floor and the rounded archway above it. The exterior surfaces are covered with clapboard and shingles.

255 Bloomingbank Road
Popelka Residence
Architects: Meyer and Cook, Circa 1929

This is a Tudor house with a slate roof. The Tudor style of architecture was popular in the 1920s and 1930s. It borrowed architectural features from English homes of the Middle Ages. The Tudors were a family of British kings and queens, including the notorious Henry VIII who had six wives and the very famous Queen Elizabeth I, his daughter.

Some of the features of an English home of the Middle ages included:

• A steep pitched roof
• Heavy timber work (the wood beams showing in the facade of the house)
• Massive chimneys
• The use of brick and stone as construction materials for the lower floor
• Leaded casement windows

350 Fairbank Road
Avery Coonley Playhouse
Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright, 1912

This building was originally built as a progressive school for Mrs. Avery Coonley.

It is shaped like a "T" with the stem of the T projecting toward the street. The stem is higher than the wings. The emphasis here again is on horizontal lines. There is a flat roof with extensive overhangs. Note the stained glass windows on the second floor with their design of balloons and flag ("parade" theme). One of the original panes of glass is presently at the Art Institute of Chicago