Operating the saloon out of his home, Merrill catered to truck farmers carrying produce over the plank road to the city.

The plant and warehouses covered 11 acres (45,000 m2), and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad built a station at Leclaire Avenue to accommodate all the employees.

Job opportunities and rail service brought settlers and a housing boom to the town, now named Cragin.

The Belt Railway Company extended its service into the area in 1883, and plants developed in the new neighborhoods of Hanson Park and Galewood.

In 1922 W. F. Hall Printing Company erected a plant on 17 acres (69,000 m2) adjacent to the Northwestern railroad line, which further spurred manufacturing development.

During the postwar years, until the 1990s, mostly descendants of Europeans, mostly already assimilated second, third and fourth generation German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Polish, and Scandinavians had populated the area.

The Chicago Transit Authority in the 1940s extended its Belmont Street electric bus service beyond Central, transporting new patrons into the shopping district.

A 1981 addition of a nearby parking garage continued to contribute to business prosperity but the area had seen its days since the opening of the Brickyard Mall.

Jewel Osco was originally in the location of Target in the old mall floor plan that once included Montgomery Ward and JC Penney department stores and K-mart.

Until the early 1980s, Central Soya and its silos were located south of Grand Ave on Laramie; In 1943, Revere Copper opened a war material plant where Grand Ave. meets Fullerton Ave. From 1953 to 1963, Western Electric assembled mobile radar units in this structure and erected a tall concrete test stand at the corner of Fullerton and Normandy.

Residents formed an active coalition called the Northwest Neighborhood Federation to address increases in crime, gangs, and school overpopulation.

Concerns over unemployment and an increasing poverty level have led residents to organize a home reinvestment campaign and to study ways of reviving the commercial climate in the area.

The Belmont-Cragin community area comprises four neighborhoods: Belmont Central, Brickyard, Cragin, Hanson Park.