General Info

The Edgewater Historical Society was founded in January of 1988 to involve the Edgewater community in the preservation of its history. The impetus to form the Society was the 1986 celebration of the Edgewater Centennial, during which Edgewater Community Council conducted an oral history project. From that project grew a great interest in researching and documenting neighborhood streets and structures. The Edgewater Historical Society operates the Museum pictured above and conducts Home Tours and Walking Tours throughout the year. Please check our Calendar for a list of future events. Edgewater is a Chicago community of 62, 000 people in an area bounded by the Lake, Foster, Ravenswood and Devon. The name Edgewater originated with developer John L. Cochran, who began creating a small town here in 1880. By 1910, the name Edgewater was being used through the area. Today, Edgewater is composed of several neighborhoods including Andersonville. The Edgewater Historical Society logo below represents the four-mile electric railway which Cochran built in 1892 to connect his Edgewater community to Diversey Avenue in Chicago. It also illustrates the style of the word Edgewater which Cochran used in his newspaper ads for the new community. The Edgewater Historical Society Scrapbook is our antique-style quarterly newsletter. The Edgewater Historical Society e-Scrapbook contains articles and photographs selected from the Scrapbook newsletter. Join us as a valued member to receive the printed newsletter and complete your Edgewater Scrapbook experience. The Edgewater Historical Society is dedicated to our historical bond and enrichment. We hope these pages will help connect generations and lives. Thank you for visiting our community and home. This website requires a screen resolution of at least 800x600 and is best viewed using the most current version of Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. You should be able to use older or other web browsers, but the formatting might not always be correct.