Founding year: the first River Forest post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives River Forest’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, River Forest is more historic than 89% of U.S. towns, #84 of 768 in Illinois. Its National Register listings hold the grade up; its age pulls it down.
A
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of River Forest’s overall grade.
Few Illinois towns list much on the Register (a typical Illinois town has 0.5 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so River Forest’s 522 sits above most of its state (99% of Illinois towns have fewer) while its 626 historic buildings outnumber those of 98% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from B+ to A+. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±5.1 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about River Forest’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
The Native American history of the area is closely tied to the Des Plaines River and includes Menominee and Chippewa settlements near what is now the Desplaines Avenue and Roosevelt Road forest preserves of Cook County. The Menominees would eventually be driven out by the Potowatomi Nation in 1810. The Potawatomi were in turn pushed west of the Mississippi by the Treaty of Chicago of 1833.
1831 saw the establishment of a steam sawmill on the east bank of the Des Plaines River. In 1842, the first planked road in what is now Lake Street was created. The community was known as Noyesville at the time. In 1848 the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad completed construction of tracks westward from Chicago, and train service commenced in January 1849.
Passages that mention River Forest, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Cook County, Illinois. From the earliest period to the present time1884 · page 806Read the page →
Read the text
cm! of WvcTForMt. "S»3 lll<; railroail company established their depot here, naming it Thatcher. Samuel Rattle went there in 1858. and both Mr. Thatcher and Mr. Rattle built houses there. River Forest was incorporated In i«Ho. The petition for incorporation slated that there were more than three hundred inhabitants within the limits of the territory proposed to be incorporated, which was described as follows : The west
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
River Forest, 1882 to 1985
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
The River Forest post office opened in 1882, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does River Forest rank for history?
River Forest is more historic than 89% of U.S. towns, #84 of 768 in Illinois. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
What is on the National Register in River Forest?
5 listings: 5 buildings, among them the William E. Drummond House (listed 1970, the first). 626 historic buildings in all.
How old are the homes in River Forest?
42% of River Forest’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±5.1 points), against a typical 11% for an Illinois town; the median home was built in 1946.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikimedia Commons (13), Wikidata (2), the National Register of Historic Places (5), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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