Lost Towns of Illinois - Rand, Illinois.

Des Plaines, Illinois originally started as a settlement in 1835 an became the ”Town of Rand," the name being given in honor of landowner Socrates Rand.[1]

Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwe (Chippewa) Indian tribes inhabited the Des Plaines River Valley prior to Europeans' arrival. When French explorers and missionaries arrived in the 1670s in what was then the Illinois Country of New France (Canada), they named the waterway La Rivière des Plaines ("River of the Plane Tree") as they felt that trees on the river resembled the European plane trees.

The Des Plaines River.

The first white settlers came from the eastern United States after the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, followed by many German immigrants during the 1840s and '50s. In the 1850s, the land in this area was purchased by the Illinois and Wisconsin Land Company along a railroad line planned between Chicago and Janesville, Wisconsin. In 1852, the developers built a steam-powered mill next to the river to cut local trees into railroad ties. Socrates Rand then bought the mill and converted it into a grist mill, which attracted local farmers. The Illinois and Wisconsin Railroad made its first stop in the area in the fall of 1854.

Excerpt from a map of the Counties of Cook and DuPage, the east part of Kane and Kendall, the north part of Will, the state of Illinois, published in 1851.

The Town of Rand in Maine Township, Cook County, Illinois was platted in 1857 and contained the subdivision of the south half of the southwest quarter of Section 16, part of the east half of the southeast quarter of Section 17, the northeast quarter of Section 20, and the northwest quarter and part of the northeast quarter of Section 21, and subdivided into streets, alleys and lots, numbered from one to sixty-nine and from seventy-two to one hundred and seventy-nine inclusive. Rand was comprised of four square miles of land.

This plat was acknowledged on September 5, 1857, by Henry Smith, trustee of the Illinois & Wisconsin Land Company, proprietors of said lands, also as an attorney in fact for said company, and also by John Irel ton and Reuben E. Demmon, trustees of said company. It was recorded on September 7, 1857.

The name of the town was changed to Des Plaines by an act of the Legislature, approved April 15, 1869.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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[1] Socrates Rand was a pioneer who arrived from Massachusetts in 1835, was one of the first to settle along the river north of what is now Dempster Street. Quite a string of "firsts" are associated with Rand. As the area's first justice of the peace, he performed the first wedding in 1836. He hosted many early Episcopalian and Methodist services in his home, and his cheese room became the first school room--for 15 pupils--in 1838. Rand helped organize Maine Township and was chairman of the first meeting in 1850.

The 1864 Civil War Soldier's Home at 739 East 35th Street in Chicago, Illinois.

Chicago's last surviving building with a direct association to the Civil War (1861-1865).

Soldier’s Home; illustration by Louis Kurz, August 1866.
View of shelter for Civil War veterans, presenting a lively scene with a passing train on the IC tracks, and a crew of four with steersman rowing a boat, and a sailboat at the lakefront. The building still exists, its south side location saving it from the Great Fire. 

The Soldier's Home was constructed at the edge of the Camp Douglas prison camp through the efforts of a women's group. During the war, it was a hospital for convalescent soldiers; following the war, it served as a home for disabled Union Army veterans. The building's earliest sections were designed in an Italianate style by William W. Boyington, the architect of the Chicago Water Tower. The structure has had several additions since then, most of them surrounding a common light well.

Designated a Chicago Landmark on April 16, 1996.

A Description from the 1860s.
The "Soldier's Home" is located near the south-eastern limits of the city, in the immediate vicinity of the Chicago University and of the Douglas Monument. Its history is honorable to the noble ladies who protected it, and to whose labors its successful maintenance is alone to be attributed. The history of the great Sanitary Commission will live while men have hearts to remember deeds of love and mercy.

But in the spring of 1863, the number of poor, weary, dIsabled and sick soldiers returning from the Civil War field suggested the necessity of some united effort in their behalf. A meeting of ladies was held at Bryan HaIl in June of that year, and it was resolved to hold a strawberry festival to raise funds. This was successful, and the building, No. 45 Randolph street, was rented as a Home for sick and disabled soldiers. The ladies then resorted to seeking subscriptions from door to door, and their appeal met a liberal response. The site of the present Home was then purchased and the buildings thereon used for the time. The house on Randolph street was used to receive the soldiers, who were then transferred to the “Home.” The building is four stories high, and is built of brick, with basement and attic, and has ample accommodations for two hundred inmates. As soon as the Home was first organized, an auxiliary institution was put in operation, known as the “Soldier’s Rest.” The Government furnished the buildings and rations, the ladies managed all the rest.

The operations of the two branches of the Home for the first year were: Number of arrivals, 46,384; meals furnished, 96,909; lodgings, 26,481; medically treated, 2,557. The second year furnished the following figures : Number of arrivals, 60,003; number of meals, 167,263. During the year ending June 1, 1865, there had been 767 inmates of the Home received; many of them were provided with clothing, and all were fed. Since then the average number of inmates always exceeded 100. There are now one hundred and more sick and disabled men who are given the comforts of a home, which, to the destitute, is a boon beyond value.

In 1865, the Home received $80,000, part of the proceeds of the Fair of that year held in Chicago. All else has been the result of voluntary contributions in response to personal applications and appeals by the ladies.

Soldiers' Home, now owned by the Archdiocese of Chicago. Built in phases, between 1864 and 1923, by William W. Boyington. Designated a Chicago Landmark on April 16, 1996.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Illustration of the Junction of the Chicago River. July 1866 (Artist: Louis Kurz)

Chicago River — This view is of that portion of the river where the two branches unite and form the main river. The drawing is taken from a point on West Water Street, north of the approach to Lake Street Bridge.

It presents a scene hardly equal in animation to what is generally to be seen at that point. On the right are the protections to Lake Street Bridge. On the left is a vessel in tow of a tug coming from the north branch, and in the extreme distance is Wells Street Bridge over the main river. On the north side of the river are the Iowa and other Elevators, and on the south the row of warehouses lying between South Water Street and the river. At the front of the picture may be seen the upper portion of a locomotive upon the track which connects along this line the various Northern and Western with the Southern and Eastern Railways.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.