Four photographs of North, South, East and West View of Devon & Western Avenues in 1914 Chicago, Illinois.

A Brief History of Devon Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.
Devon Avenue was originally known as Church Road. It was renamed in the 1880s by Edgewater developer John Lewis Cochran after Devon station on the Main Line north of Philadelphia. 

Initially known for its cabbage and truck 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.

Western and Arthur Avenues, Chicago, 1920s.

 

CLICK THE PICTURES BELOW TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.

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 (the 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 S.W. corner of Rockwell and Devon, where B.F.'s Grandparents worked.

Additional Reading:

Many Early Chicago Areas Were Called "The Cabbage Patch."

The Intertwined History of Rogers Park and the West Ridge Communities of Chicago.

Photographs of Devon and Artesian Avenues, West Ridge Community of Chicago, Illinois. (circa 1950s)

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.