Orchard Place, Illinois

Orchard Place was a small unincorporated community in Cook County, Illinois, just west of Chicago. Established in the early 20th century, the community was primarily a rural area characterized by farmland and orchards, from which it derived its name. Orchard Place experienced modest growth throughout the early decades of the 1900s, developing into a quiet residential area.

In the 1940s Orchard Place underwent significant changes due to the establishment of Orchard Place Airport, a military airfield created during World War II. The airfield later transitioned to commercial use and was eventually renamed O'Hare International Airport, now one of the busiest airports in the world. The expansion and development of the airport led to the absorption and dissolution of Orchard Place as an independent community.

History

Settled by German immigrants in the 1840s, it was known as Farwell before 1886, when the name was changed to Orchard Place. The Post Office opened in 1881 and changed names in 1886. The Post Office seems to have been closed in 1935. It became a stop on the Wisconsin Central Railroad in 1887 and received the name Orchard Place at that time.

Orchard Field

In 1942 a large tract of farmland located southwest of the intersection of Higgins and Mannheim Roads was acquired by the War Production Board for the construction of a new air base and aircraft manufacturing facility. Douglas Aircraft built C-54 "Skymaster" cargo planes at the facility. It was named Orchard Place Airport/Douglas Field, and four runways were constructed for the delivery of manufactured aircraft. During the war, fighter aircraft were stored at the 803 Special Depot at the Orchard Place Airport. After World War II, the production of aircraft at the Douglas plant ceased, and in 1946, the U.S. Government transferred 1,080 acres of the airport land to the City of Chicago. The city chose the site to meet future aviation demands. They purchased additional land and renamed the airport Orchard Field. In 1949, the airfield became Chicago O'Hare International Airport, named in honor of Lieutenant Commander Edward "Butch" O'Hare, a U.S. Navy flying ace and Medal of Honor recipient after the war.

At some point before 1950 much of the land in the adjacent community was subdivided into residential lots, and a network of initially unpaved streets was developed. This development covered most of the area bounded by Touhy Avenue on the north, (Des Plaines) River Road on the east, Devon Avenue and Higgins Road on the south, and Mannheim Road on the west side (the airport lay to the Southwest of the Mannhiem/Devon intersection, more-or-less diagonally across that intersection from the Orchard Place community.) These de facto boundaries were altered slightly by the construction of the Northwest Tollway in the mid-1950s, forming a barrier separating it from the largely undeveloped southwestern corner of the area as well as the airport area in general. The community was annexed by referendum to the City of Des Plaines in 1956.

Orchard Place today

Today the former Orchard Place is the southernmost neighborhood of Des Plaines. One house from the original community is still standing at the south end of Curtiss Street across the street from the Buckhorn Trailer Park. This house sat on of land, half of which was taken for the expressway construction. The house itself was moved about north. The legacy of its original name persists in O'Hare's IATA airport code, , as well as in the name of Orchard Place Elementary School.

Another relic of the area's past is Resthaven Cemetery, which remains on 1½ acres on the southern side of the airport, near a FedEx processing center. Founded in 1840 by German settlers, the cemetery has approximately 150 graves. Another German cemetery, called St. John's after the church that once was next to it, was removed in 2012 during an O'Hare expansion, with its remains reinterred elsewhere; a third cemetery, known as Wilmer’s Old Settler Cemetery, was seized by the federal government in the 1950s.

References

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Des Plaines, Illinois
Neighborhoods in Illinois
Populated places in Cook County, Illinois
Populated places established in the 1840s
German-American history

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