2017 Village of Glenview Comprehensive Plan glenview_comp_plan_2017_03_29_sm | Page 10

Introduction
Glenview’s Past
Until the late 1800s, what is present-
day Glenview was an area of natural
prairie, wetlands, and oak woodlands.
This natural environment would inspire
one of the nation’s foremost naturalist
of the time, Robert Kennicott.
Kennicott was an American naturalist
who considered the area that would
later become Glenview his home. He
spent most of his youth outdoors,
collecting plants and animals on his
father’s large land holding. This area
would later become known as “The
Grove.” Mr. Kennicott’s reputation as a
diligent and thorough naturalist led to
a request by Northwestern University
to help create a museum of natural
history of the area, which resulted in
the founding of the Chicago Academy
of Sciences. [Source: Ronald S. Vasile,
Illinois Historical Journal Vol. 87, No. 3
(Autumn, 1994), “The Early Career of
Robert Kennicott, Illinois’ Pioneering
Naturalist”]
Today, The Grove in Glenview is
recognized as a National Historic
Landmark, and discussed further in
Chapter 7 of this Comprehensive Plan.
Glenview was incorporated as a village
in 1899 with Hugh Burnham (nephew
1.4
G lenview R ail S tation - c . 1895 - c . 1910
of the famous Chicago Urban Designer
and Architect Daniel Burnham) as its
first village president. At this time,
the village had an adult population of
325. Its first governing board installed
wooden planked sidewalks and gas
streetlights on Waukegan Road. The
gravel streets were not paved until the
1920s. The Village remained primarily
a farming community, and as late as
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