2500 West Lunt Avenue
Chicago, IL 60645
USA
Tour of West Ridge 2013 Poster
West Ridge is Community Area #2, 9 miles northwest of the city’s Loop. The tour begins at the National and Chicago Landmark Park, Indian Boundary Park at 2500 W Lunt Ave in front of the recently fire-damaged Clarence Hatzfield designed Tudor fieldhouse with Native American motifs. The park is part of the northern boundary of the area that the Potawatomi seceded to the U.S. in 1816. West Ridge sits on a natural ridge, remnants of the glacial path that shaped the Great Lakes region. Following centuries of use by indigenous people, West Ridge was settled in the 1830s by immigrants who came to the region to farm the land. It is a popular and comfortable locale with jaw dropping mansions and a fleet of sturdy and tiny worker’s homes. Come join us on a leisurely bike ride to get to know the community, its history and architecture.
This is running of the Tour of West Ridge is being done in association with Good City as part of the Indian Boundary Bike Tours series, marking the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of St. Louis of 1816.
About the Indian Boundary Bike Tour Series
Presented by Chicago Velo in association with Good City
On August 24, 1816 at the second Treaty of St. Louis, the Nations of the Great Lakes region known as the Council of the Three Fires, the Odawa, the Potawatomi and the Ojibwe ceded to the United States a 20-mile stretch of land from Calumet City to the northernmost communities of present day Chicago and from Lake Michigan to the Fox and Illinois Rivers. This marks the two hundredth year of the treaty, which unfolded in the aftermath of the Battle of Fort Dearborn, and marked a new chapter in the United States’ acquisition of territory and displacement of the indigenous people of the region. The Treaty of St. Louis is a name given to a series of treaties between the United States and a number of Native American tribes and Nations between 1804 and 1824 and the signing of the second treaty of 1816 is one of the most impacting events in Illinois’ history that paved the way for statehood and forever shaped the geography and character of Chicago and many surrounding suburbs.
The Indian Boundary Bike Tours will commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Treaty of St. Louis of 1816t with five bike tours that feature four northern Chicago Community Areas most impacted by the Indian Boundary, and a fifth tour looking at the Prairie School Architecture of the area, a tour that is also part of the Prairie Tours series.
