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Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Naperville, Illinois.
Naperville is located in DuPage and Will counties.
Official Website
History
In July 1831, Joseph Naper arrived at the west bank of the DuPage River with his family and friends to found what would be known as Naper's Settlement. Among those original settlers were Naper's wife Almeda Landon, his brother John with wife Betsy Goff, his sister Amy with husband John Murray, and his mother Sarah. Also on the journey were several families who remained in the settlement that would become Chicago.
By 1832, over one hundred settlers had arrived at Naper's Settlement. Following the news of the Indian Creek massacre during the Black Hawk War, these settlers were temporarily displaced to Fort Dearborn for protection from an anticipated attack by the Sauk tribe. Fort Payne was built at Naper's Settlement, the settlers returned and the attack never materialized. The Pre-Emption House was constructed in 1834, as the Settlement became a stage-coach stop on the road from Chicago to Galena.
After DuPage County was split from Cook County in 1839, Naper's Settlement became the DuPage county seat, a distinction it held until 1868. Naper's Settlement was incorporated as the Village of Naperville in 1857.
In 1887, Peter Edward Kroehler established the Kroehler Manufacturing Company's factory in Naperville along the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy tracks. Kroehler Manufacturing became the world's largest furniture manufacturer, and a major employer in Naperville. The company closed the Naperville factory in 1978.
On April 26, 1946, Naperville was the site of one of the worst train disasters in Chicago history. Two Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad trains, the Advance Flyer and the Exposition Flyer, collided 'head to tail' on a single track just west of the Loomis Street grade crossing. The accident killed 45 and injured approximately 127 passengers and/or crew members.
A predominantly rural community for most of its existence, Naperville experienced a population explosion beginning in the 1960s and continuing into the 1980s and 1990s, following the construction of the East-West Tollway (now known as the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway) and Interstate 355 (originally known as the North-South Tollway, now the Veterans Memorial Tollway). It has nearly quadrupled in size as the Chicago metropolitan area's urban sprawl brought corporations, jobs, and wealth to the area.