North Shore (Chicago)

The North Shore is known for its affluence, high level of education, proximity to Chicago, and top-rated public schools.

The Shore Line route of the CNS&M until 1955 served, from south to north, the Illinois communities of Chicago, Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Highwood, Fort Sheridan, Lake Forest, Lake Bluff, North Chicago, Waukegan, Zion, and Winthrop Harbor as well as Kenosha, Racine, and Milwaukee (the "KRM") in Wisconsin.

[11] While the CNS&M ran from Chicago all the way to Milwaukee, the term "North Shore" today typically refers only to the communities between Lake Bluff and Wilmette.

[14] The North Shore is also the home of the Ravinia Festival, a historic outdoor music theater in Highland Park, Illinois.

[citation needed] Highwood became home of the annual Pumpkin Festival which saw thousands of people every year flock to the small town for a week of music, food, community, and the lighting of 32,000 Jack o' Lanterns.

The town used to hold the world record for most carved and lit Jack o' Lanterns but lost the title to Keene, New Hampshire.

Real estate and other marketers notably use the term for Maine, New Trier, Niles, Northfield, and Norwood Townships, as well as those of southern Lake County and other nearby communities.

[21] Chicago's North Shore Convention & Visitors Bureau's markets the City of Evanston and the Villages of Skokie, Glenview, Northbrook and Winnetka.

a community newspaper known as "What's Happening" began mailing out its publication to what it characterizes as the "16 affluent North Shore suburbs": Bannockburn, Buffalo Grove, Deerfield, Fort Sheridan, Skokie, Glencoe, Glenview, Highland Park, Kenilworth, Libertyville, Lincolnshire, Northbrook, Northfield, Riverwoods, Vernon Hills, Wilmette, and Winnetka.

[23] Overall, the general usage of the term "North Shore" is sometimes applied to the following suburbs: Bannockburn; Buffalo Grove; Deerfield; Des Plaines; Glenview; Golf; Green Oaks; Harwood Heights; Libertyville; Lincolnshire; Lincolnwood; Mettawa; Mundelein; Niles; Norridge; Northbrook; Northfield; Park Ridge; Riverwoods; Rosemont; Skokie; Vernon Hills; and Wheeling.

Oakton College serves the same district as the Central Suburban League, with campuses in Des Plaines and Skokie.

This area received much exposure in the 1980s as the setting of many teen films, particularly those of writer/director John Hughes, who grew up in Northbrook and attended Glenbrook North High School.

Map of northeastern Illinois showing the North Shore and surrounding areas.
Many credit Walter S. Gurnee as the father of the North Shore. [ 1 ]
One of the earliest known monographs to be devoted to the North Shore, The Book of the North Shore (1910), and its companion volume, The Second Book of the North Shore (1911), were written by Marian A. White , whose husband J. Harrison White had established a weekly newspaper in Rogers Park in 1895 called the North Shore Suburban . [ 2 ] The image above is the title page of the first volume and shows the front door of the S.H. Gunder house at 6219 N. Sheridan Road, which today serves as the main building for the North Lakeside Cultural Center in Chicago. The canopy has been removed.
North Shore Line 1941 timetable cover
Chicago, as seen from the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston .
Bahá'í House of Worship, Wilmette, Illinois . The temple is the only Bahá'í House of Worship in America.