Our subject is Community Area 30, the area of the West Side
generally centered around 26th and Central Park. Historically,
the neighborhood was known as South Lawndale. That’s still the
official name. But around 1964 community leaders here began
referring to their turf as Little Village. North Lawndale was
going through some bad times, and the people south the
Burlington railroad wanted to emphasize their separate status.
To keep the narration simple, I’m calling this area SLLV. In
1869 the City of Chicago annexed most of the area that would
become SLLV. The only hints of civilization then were a few
farms and a little settlement near the Burlington tracks. That
would soon change. The Great Fire of 1871 wiped out downtown
Chicago. The McCormick Reaper Works on the lakefront was among
the properties destroyed. The company rebuilt on the outskirts
of the city, at Western and Blue Island avenues. When employees
at the new plant began settling nearby, developers began
subdividing in SLLV. Over the next 30 years,