A Brief History of Devon Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.

Devon Avenue on the north side of Chicago was originally known as Church Road, but it was renamed in the 1880s by Edgewater developer John Lewis Cochran after Devon station on the Main Line north of Philadelphia. Originally known for its farms and greenhouses, North Town, as it was then called, began to attract residential and commercial development in the early 1920s. Developer Henry B. Rance opened the area’s first real estate office in a frame shack at the corner of Devon and Western Avenues.

This is Devon Avenue in 1914 looking East from just East of Western Avenue. The people (from L to R) are "B.F.'s" Great Aunt, his Mother, Grandmother, Uncle, and another Grand Aunt. They were walking from Angel Guardian's Church (steeple is barely visible in the background on the far right-hand side, just above the tree line) back to a Truck Farm on the southwest corner of Rockwell and Devon where his Grandparents worked.

A compiled list of Devon Avenue bakeries from the 1960s & 70s.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.