Ready for This Dressage Show Season

A handful of farmers from England settled in 1830-1832, despite there being no roads from Chicago, only native American trails, as the defeat of the Black Hawk War and the Treaty of Chicago led Native Americans to leave the areas. Farmers Germany and Luxembourg started arriving by the end of the decade, clearing the land by cutting the walnut, oak, hickory, elm and maple trees. Logs were initially hauled to a sawmill at Dutchman's Point (later Niles, Illinois) at the corner of what would become Milwaukee, Waukegan and Touhy Avenues, and stumps burned for charcoal that could then be hauled to heat homes in expanding Chicago. Immigrant John Miller erected a water-powered sawmill near where the Chicago River met the future Dempster Street shortly after 1841. This simplified homebuilding in the area, as well as facilitated further lumber sales.