[2] The name Summit, in use since 1836, refers to the highest point on the Chicago Portage between the northeast-flowing Chicago River and the southwest-flowing Des Plaines River located just north of the city.

Named for the nearby cornstarch and baking powder manufacturing plant, it developed separately from the older part of the city.

When Europeans first arrived the area was inhabited or used by the Meskwaki, Illini, Miami, Sauk, and Chippewa-Ottawa-Potawatomi tribes.

[5][6] In 1673 the Marquette-Joliet expedition arrived at the portage north of the city and went on to the location of Chicago.

A local trading network developed from that time until the Native Americans were removed beginning in 1816.

Chicago politician "Long John" Wentworth bought much of the surrounding area and used it for farming.

After 1865 limestone quarries north of the canal provided jobs into the 1920s, when they were closed, often used as garbage dumps, then covered over.

When John Wentworth, and his political influence, died in 1888 his heirs and the settlement residents feared being annexed by Chicago.

This area was changed with the construction of Interstate 55, which effectively replaced Lawndale Ave. with the Illinois Route 171 ramp.

In 1899 a large center-pier swing steel bridge was built for Lawndale Ave., the only crossing for miles in either direction until the 1920s.

[16][17] In 1901 the Chicago and Joliet Electric Railway Interurban was operating a double-track line down Archer Ave. To the east it connected with Chicago streetcars at Cicero Ave. (then the city limits), to the southwest it went past Argo and on to Joliet.

[18][19] In 1907 Corn Products Corp. (now Ingredion) began construction of the world's largest corn-processing plant south of Summit (Bedford Park today) in 1907.

At the same time two properties, north and south of 63rd St., were sub-divided as a "company town" type neighborhood called "Argo" after the factory.

The nature of the city changed from rural to industrial, largely because of the Corn Products plant.

Ingredion operates a corn milling and processing plant at 65th Street and Archer Avenue, in an area known as Argo.