Hinsdale Real Estate

Hinsdale, City Guide

Hinsdale Community

• The Community House
  415 West Eighth Street
  630/323-7500 630/323-7510 FAX
• Hinsdale Center for the Arts
  5903 South County Line Road
  630/887-0203 630/887-1407 FAX
• Hinsdale Humane Society
  22 N. Elm Street
  630/323-5630
• Hinsdale Post Office
  109 Symonds Drive
  630/990-4224
  877/877-7833 TTY

Hinsdale Education

Schools within the Hinsdale Area:

• Hinsdale Central High School - Grades 9-12

• Hinsdale Middle School - Grades 6-8

• Madison Elem School - Grades K-5

• Monroe Elem School - Grades K-5

• Oak Elem School - Grades K-5

• The Lane Elem School - Grades K-5

Community Consolidated
School District 181
5905 S. County Line Road
(630) 887-1070
(630) 887-1079 FAX

- Hinsdale Library -

The Hinsdale Public Library is located at 20 E. Maple Street in the west wing of the Memorial Building. The facility provides the community with a full-service library of approximately 30,000 square feet. Contact the Library at 630-986-1976 or FAX 630-986-9720 or TDD 630-986-1982.

Services include general and business reference assistance in response to information requests; computer searches of automated databases; a full range of story times, reading clubs and other programs for children and young adults; and interlibrary loan. Microcomputers, typewriters, and coin-operated photocopiers (including a color copier) are available for use in the library. The library's meeting rooms and display cases can be booked for use by local not-for-profit organizations.

Materials available at the library include books (108,000 volumes), magazines, and newspapers (over 300 subscriptions); audio cassettes, compact discs (about 3,200 items including over 1,100 audio books); video cassettes (about 1,500 items) and equipment (including CD players, 16mm slide and overhead projectors). Most materials can be borrowed for home use.

The library is a member of the Suburban Library System (SLS). Hinsdale and other SLS libraries share a computer system which provides for the circulation of materials and gives each library access to the holdings of all participating libraries. SLS's interlibrary loan and reference services also enable library users to draw upon materials available throughout the nation. People may also arrange to obtain special audio material under the Library of Congress Program for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (BPH).

The library has one of the highest circulation transactions per capita rates in Illinois. Last year about 275,000 items were loaned.

There is an active Friends of the Library group which provides supplementary financial support to the library. Funds come from annual membership dues and semiannual book sales.

The Library Director heads a staff of 50 full- and part-time employees, including 11 professional librarians.

Hinsdale History

Hinsdale is an example of the upper middle-class railroad suburb that developed across the country from 1850 through 1880. Chicago, with a network of 11 separate railroad lines that entered the city from 1847 through 1861, had more than 100 railroad suburbs surrounding it by 1873. The railroad suburb has a distinctive landscape based on the picturesque English ideal of the country house set in a naturalistic, landscaped garden. Single-family homes were developed near rail stations to allow the wealthy to escape the ills of the city. Hinsdale is one of these railroad suburbs, founded in 1866 by William Robbins in anticipation of the location of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's commuter line through the area in 1864.

As surveyors plotted the CB&Q rail line in 1862, Robbins purchased some 700 acres on either side of the right-of-way, which was about one mile south of what then was known as the town of Fullersburg, near present-day Ogden Avenue and York Road. Robbins built a summer home for himself in 1864, platted the original Town of Hinsdale which encompassed much of today's central (downtown) business district and the area immediately southwest of it to present-day Fourth and Sixth streets, and recorded the town with DuPage County in 1866. To encourage development, he subdivided and sold his land. Other developers and settlers came, and by 1873 the town had stores, a post office, hotel, schoolhouse, Baptist and Congregational churches and a population of 1,500.

The tree-lined streets in Hinsdale's nearly five square mile area basically are in a grid pattern, with north-south streets running perpendicular to east-west streets, except for north of Ogden Avenue and east of County Line Road where hilly and wooded terrain inspired curving streets, loops and cul-de-sacs. Lot sizes are largely uniform, although they vary in size depending on location, probably as a result of the original developer's plans for housing in the area.

The 1890s brought extensive improvements in the Village, including a bond issue for water works, a drainage system, electrical lines, paved streets, sidewalks and a newspaper. An article, "Hinsdale the Beautiful," in the November 1897 issue of Campbell's Illustrated Journal, showcased nearly 50 of Hinsdale's most impressive homes and did much to establish the village as one of the most desirable suburbs, as well as spur its continuing growth.

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