Archer Avenue, sometimes known as Archer Road outside the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

city limits, and also known as State Street only in

Lockport, Illinois Lockport is a city in Will County, Illinois, United States, located 30 miles southwest of Chicago. Per the 2020 census, the population was 26,094. The city was incorporated in 1853. It is situated along the Illinois and Michigan (I&M) Canal, an ...

and Fairmont, Illinois city limits, is a street running northeast-to-southwest between Chicago's Chinatown and Lockport. Archer follows the original trail crossing the

Chicago Portage The Chicago Portage was an ancient portage that connected the Great Lakes waterway system with the Mississippi River system. Connecting these two great water trails meant comparatively easy access from the mouth of the St Lawrence River on the At ...

between the

Chicago River The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). Though not especially long, the river is notable because it is one of the reasons for ...

and the

Des Plaines River The Des Plaines River () is a river that flows southward for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed May 13, 2011 through southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois''American Her ...

, and parallels the path of the

Illinois and Michigan Canal The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In Illinois, it ran from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. The canal crossed the Chicago Por ...

and the

Alton Railroad The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad , was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 an ...

. As a main traffic artery, it has largely been replaced by the modern Stevenson Expressway. The street was named after the first commissioner of the

William Beatty Archer William Beatty Archer (January 30, 1793 – August 9, 1870) was an Illinois politician and businessman. Archer was a member of the Illinois General Assembly from 1825 until 1843, during which time he also served on the state Board of Canal C ...

. One early map of Chicago (ca. 1830) listed what may have been the future Archer Road as "The Road to Widow Brown's".

Route description

The east end of Archer begins in Chicago's Chinatown, then passes through the

Bridgeport Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonnoc ...

, McKinley Park and Brighton Park neighborhoods on its way to

Archer Heights Archer Heights is a community area in Chicago, Illinois, one of the 77 official community areas of Chicago. Archer Avenue runs from south of Chicago's downtown area, through the southwest side of Chicago and beyond into the southwest suburb ...

and Garfield Ridge. Outside Chicago, Archer Avenue/Road passes through the villages of

Summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topography, topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used ...

Justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...

, Willow Springs, and the southern edge of Lemont before terminating on the north side of Lockport. Between Summit and Lockport, Archer Avenue is designated as a part of

Illinois Route 171 Illinois Route 171 (IL 171) is a north–south state highway in northeastern Illinois. It runs from U.S. Route 6 (US 6) in Joliet north to Illinois Route 72 at the Chicago– Park Ridge border. The section of IL 171 on Archer Ave ...

Points of interest

Southwest of Lemont, Archer passes

Cog Hill Golf & Country Club Cog Hill Golf & Country Club is a public golf course and country club located southwest of Chicago, in Lemont. Cog Hill hosted the PGA Tour's BMW Championship from 2009 to 2011 on its championship course Dubsdread, as well as 16 times when the t ...

, site of numerous Professional Golfers Association tournaments.

History

Historically, this section of Archer was a part of

Illinois Route 4 Illinois Route 4 is a major north–south highway that runs south from the Interstate 55 business loop around the state capital of Springfield, south to Illinois Route 13 just north of Murphysboro. This is a distance of . Route description Ill ...

, the original 1924 highway connecting

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

and Chicago. In 1926, Route 4 was rerouted to the north side of the

on an alignment that subsequently became

U.S. Route 66 U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The h ...

, and its former route on Archer was redesignated as Illinois Route 4A. By 1939, Route 4A had been extended along most of Archer Avenue into Downtown Chicago. In 1967, Route 4A was truncated back to Summit and merged into Illinois Route 171.

Historical sites

The former site of

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory operated by University of Chicago, UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facil ...

and its predecessor, the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

Metallurgical Laboratory The Metallurgical Laboratory (or Met Lab) was a scientific laboratory at the University of Chicago that was established in February 1942 to study and use the newly discovered chemical element plutonium. It researched plutonium's chemistry and m ...

in the forest preserve near

Red Gate Woods Red Gate Woods is a forest preserve section within the Palos Forest Preserve, a division of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, Illinois. It is located near where the Cal-Sag Channel meets the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. In the wo ...

, can be entered from an access road on Archer Avenue. This was once a secret

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

site, and is now known as the Site A/Plot M Disposal Site.

Chicago Pile-1 Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The secret development of t ...

(CP-1), the world's first nuclear reactor, was moved from Stagg Field to this site in 1943 and renamed Chicago Pile-2 (CP-2). The remains of CP-1, CP-2, and

Chicago Pile-3 Chicago Pile-3 (CP-3) was the world's first heavy water reactor. One of the first research reactors, it was built in 1943 near Palos Hills, Illinois, original site of Argonne National Laboratory. Joining CP-1/CP-2, it first went critical on 15 ...

(CP-3) remain buried at this site. A defunct Playland Amusement Park opened in mid-summer of 1950 which, at the time, was located in Willow Springs, Illinois. Back then, Willow Springs used to be an unincorporated community. The amusement park was located at 9300 West 79th Street in present-day Justice, Illinois.

In popular culture

Archer Avenue was made famous by

Finley Peter Dunne Finley Peter Dunne (born Peter Dunne; July 10, 1867 – April 24, 1936) was an American humorist, journalist and writer from Chicago. In 1898 Dunne published ''Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War'', a collection of his nationally syndicated Mr. Dooley ...

in his books and sketches about the fictional saloonkeeper

Mr. Dooley Mr. Dooley (or Martin J. Dooley) is a fictional Irish immigrant bartender created by American journalist and humorist Finley Peter Dunne. Dooley was the subject of many Dunne columns between 1893 and 1915, and again in 1924 and 1926. Dunne's ess ...

, whose tavern was on "Archey Road". The fictional Dooley "lived" in the real-life

Bridgeport, Chicago Bridgeport is one of the 77 community areas in Chicago, on the city's South Side, bounded on the north by the South Branch of the Chicago River, on the west by Bubbly Creek, on the south by Pershing Road, and on the east by the Union Pacific ...

neighborhood. Archer Avenue is also famous as the purported haunting place of

Resurrection Mary Resurrection Mary is a well-known Chicago area ghost story, or urban legend, of the " vanishing hitchhiker" type, a type of folklore that is known in many cultures. According to the story, the ghost resides in Resurrection Cemetery in Justice, Il ...

, a

vanishing hitchhiker The vanishing hitchhiker (or variations such as the ghostly hitchhiker, disappearing hitchhiker, phantom hitchhiker) is an urban legend in which people travelling by vehicle, meet with or are accompanied by a hitchhiker who subsequently vanishes ...

who is said to travel between the Willowbrook Ballroom and Resurrection Cemetery.Ursula Bielski, ''Chicago Haunts: Ghostlore of the Windy City'', 2nd ed., Chicago: Lake Claremont Press, 1997.

Major intersections

Notes

References

{{Streets in Chicago

Archer Avenue Archer Avenue, sometimes known as Archer Road outside the Chicago, Illinois city limits, and also known as State Street only in Lockport, Illinois and Fairmont, Illinois city limits, is a street running northeast-to-southwest between Chicago's ...

Roads in Illinois Transportation in Joliet, Illinois Lockport, Illinois