Reflections: How some local town names started out, and how they’re going these days

That towns were established by the pioneers and later abandoned for one reason or another are fairly well known, at least among local history buffs.

Here in Kendall County, for instance, the town of Pavilion is only a memory, the only real evidence of its one-time existence being Pavilion Road in Kendall Township. Near Oswego, the old village of Troy was absorbed by the village of Oswego some years ago. It is commemorated today by the Oswegoland Park District’s Troy Park on North Adams Street in the village.

But perhaps lesser known is that the names by which we know many towns today are not the names with which they started their lives. Newark, for instance, was originally called Georgetown after George Hollenback, the village’s original settler and founder. Millbrook was known as Mansfield starting in 1849. The post office’s name there was changed to Millbrook in January of 1866. And Oswego had two former names, Hudson and Lodi. The men who laid the village out, Lewis Judson and Levi Arnold, called their new town Hudson. But for some reason, when the post office was established there in January of 1837, the Postal Service called it Lodi. Later that same year, some of the new village’s voters – all men during that era, of course – got together and decided on the town’s permanent name, commemorating the river and city back in New York state near which many of them lived before coming west.

This was all brought to mind when I gave a slide lecture on the stagecoach era in northern Illinois a year or so ago. The stagecoach road map I used showed Somonauk on the Chicago to Galena Road between Little Rock and PawPaw. As one member of the audience noted, modern Somonauk is located south of the old Galena Road on today’s U.S. Route 34. So what happened?

Well, a post office was established on the old Galena Road in March of 1836 and called Somonauk. At that time, DeKalb County had yet to be established, so the post office was created in Kane County. On March 4, 1837, the Somonauk Post Office was transferred to brand new DeKalb County. Then in December of 1855, the name was changed to Freeland Post Office. The post office was discontinued by the postal service on March 23, 1886.

So what about the modern village of Somonauk? Well, it was originally established as Buck Branch (which you have to admit is a pretty cool name) on May 18, 1850, a station on the new railroad heading west to Galesburg. The railroad route paralleled the old Galena Road a few miles to the south. On Jan. 21, 1854, Buck Branch’s name was changed to Somonoc Depot. But then on Dec. 26, 1855, the same day the old Somonauk Post Office’s name was changed to Freeland, the new railroad-dependent Somonauk was established. And it has retained that name ever since.

Speaking of Galena, that historically famed name also underwent changes. The post office at Galena was originally established on June 4, 1825, as the Fever River Post Office. Just six months later in January of 1826, the name was changed to Galena, the residents probably figuring naming their town after an adverse medical condition wasn’t great marketing, and that name has remained the same ever since.

A little closer to home, John Harrington worked very hard to get a post office for his growing town located on the banks of the Fox River some miles north of modern Kendall County. Thanks to his energetic lobbying, he was awarded a post office with his preferred name for his new town, La Fox, on March 12, 1836. But other residents of the growing village, mostly transplanted New Yorkers, preferred another name, and on April 9, 1850, the town got its permanent name, Geneva.

Today’s La Fox was established west of Geneva on April 5, 1860. Both La Fox and Geneva post offices are still very active.

When the northern stage road from Chicago to Galena was established, it passed through McClure’s Grove, and the grove got its own post office on April 13, 1837. But some of the settlers who arrived thereafter were of Scottish descent who wanted a more familiar name. So they picked Dundee, and on Sept. 3, 1841, the name of the growing village along the Fox River was changed. It has had that same name ever since.

As the rail lines pushed west of the Fox River, a number of stations were established, and some of these got their own post offices. Blackberry Station’s post office was established on May 24, 1854, and a town began to grow up around the station and post office. By the 1880s, a good sized community had been established, and a new name was picked by the residents based on a shortened version of the railroad’s preferred “Melbourne.” On Feb. 26, 1886, the post office name was changed to reflect the residents’ preference – Elburn.

Another station was established along the rail line, and called simply Line. The Line Post Office was established on Jan. 15, 1847. On March 31, 1854, the name was changed to Lodi Station, the name it held for several years before residents who had moved to the growing village decided it needed a more poetic-sounding name that would reflect the surrounding hardwood grove. So in February 1880, the post office was renamed to match the name of the town, and Maple Park has been growing ever since.

The founders of towns up and down the Fox Valley had favorite names in mind when they established their towns, from Hudson to La Fox. But not everyone was as deeply in love with those names as were the towns’ founders. As James Herrington found out, just because he was smitten by the name La Fox didn’t mean everyone who moved to the new town he established was as well. What’s better, Turner’s Junction or West Chicago? Clintonville or South Elgin? Buck Branch or Somonauk? Today, we’re still living with the decisions our ancestors made, for better or worse.

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