North Shore (Chicago) - Origin and Definition of Term

Origin and Definition of Term

Early histories of Chicago do not use the term North Shore. It began to come into use in the early 1880s and by 1889, with the creation of the North Shore Improvement Association, the name was officially established. In 1890 Joseph Sears used the term several times in a brochure that was written to promote the newly-forming community of Kenilworth. It is believed to have come into widespread use following the establishment in 1891 of the Waukegan & North Shore Rapid Transit Company, which in 1916 following reorganization was renamed the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad ("CNS&M"). This railway ran along Lake Michigan's western shore between Chicago and Milwaukee. The "Shore Line Route" of the CNS&M until 1955 served, from south to north, the Illinois communities of Chicago, Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Highwood, Fort Sheridan, Lake Forest, Lake Bluff, North Chicago, Waukegan, Zion, and Winthrop Harbor as well as Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee in Wisconsin. The line was popularly referred to, including in the railroad's own brochures and timetables, as the "North Shore Line." After 1924 the "Skokie Valley" line of the CNS&M opened land further west to the North Shore.

Meanwhile, in 1906, the Sanitary District of Chicago platted the "North Shore Channel" of the sanitary canal from the Chicago River, through Evanston and Wilmette to Lake Michigan.

While the CNS&M ran from Chicago all the way to Milwaukee, the term "North Shore" today typically refers only to the communities between Lake Bluff and Chicago. Michael Ebner's scholarly Creating Chicago's North Shore: A Suburban History, one of the most thorough studies of the area, covers eight suburbs along the lake: Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Lake Forest, and Lake Bluff. In their North Shore Chicago: Houses of the Lakefront Suburbs, 1890-1940, Cohen and Benjamin include not only those eight suburbs but also "the tiny city of Highwood" which is slightly inland, just north of Highland Park.