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1953 Map of Highland Park

Name: 1953 Topographic Map of Highland Park
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1955
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1955

About this map

Fort Sheridan and its military reservation dominate the Lake Michigan shoreline in this mid-century survey of Chicago’s North Shore suburbs. The landscape is characterized by a dense concentration of early twentieth-century leisure and educational institutions, including the Onwentsia Club, Exmoor Country Club, and Lake Forest Academy. Inland, the terrain is defined by the three branches of the Chicago River, where developing residential communities like Deerfield and Bannockburn began to fill the spaces between established rail lines.

The infrastructure of the 1950s is clearly visible, with the newly established Edens Expressway and the Skokie Highway carving through the Skokie River valley alongside the North Shore and Milwaukee Railway. From the expansive Lake Michigan shoreline at Glencoe and Winnetka to the industrial and aviation activity at Sky Harbor Airport, this map documents a period of rapid suburbanization and the transition from a rail-dependent corridor to an automobile-centric region.