Most commonly, the term was used to refer to a small unincorporated area north of Chicago on Sheridan Road, along the shore of Lake Michigan.

Undeveloped for nearly a century after the first settlement of the area, no neighboring municipality wanted to annex it, and it became a haven for shady activities.

[1] In the 1920s, a developer envisioned and began construction of a planned club and beach hotel complex to be called "Vista Del Lago" (Spanish for "Lakeview").

The club was actually built, in a Moorish Revival architectural style, on the west side of Sheridan Road, but the Great Depression prevented completion of the hotel.

The lack of development on the east side of the road, coupled with the club's location in a relatively lawless unincorporated area, led to a state legislator in the 1930s terming No Man's Land "a slot machine and keno sin center where college students were being debauched with beer, hard liquor and firecrackers.