Edgewater Historical Society

What an eyesore. Their garden and surrounding landscape is a HOT MESS! Overgrown and filled with rats and mosquitoes!

LOVE LOVE LOVE this place. Free admission, lots of history, awesome photos, pleasant people. They are open weekends and on Thursday evenings during the summer (with music events on Thursdays June-​September). I am a resident of Edgewater and wanted to know more about the ‘hood, so I stopped in and met some people and heard some stories. I like this place so much, I’m going to train to be a volunteer docent!

Ahoy, a treasure cove of local lore. This place is a storytelling gold mine, packed with neighborhood history from Edgewater, Rogers Park, and Uptown. And what’s more, you can get in and out in about a half hour, satisfied that you’ve read just about everything on display. They have a continuously changing series of exhibits, speakers, and tours, so you’ll have plenty reason to come back, or even sign up for their email list.
The kind ladies working here, eager to chat about the neighborhoods’ most memorable moments, were a real delight. Our conversation was part historical gossip, part community analysis, and wholly entertaining.
I walked away loaded with trivia: (1) Hillary Clinton was born in Edgewater, but her birthplace hospital has since closed after scandalous, rampant medicare fraud in the 1990s; (2) there’s a still-​existing underground passageway between the Green Mill tavern and the Aragon Ballroom, which mobsters in the 1920s used to frequent when getting pinched by the police; (3) the original land prospector and developer of Edgewater, John L. Cochran, mysteriously committed suicide in the mid 1920s by jumping out of a hotel window… right at the height of the gangster age… huh…
There’s plenty more fascinating stuff to learn here. I walked away thinking that every neighborhood needs a place like this, and fascinating, like-​minded groups like Forgotten Chicago would do well to pair up with such historical societies, although the volunteers would probably attest to all the work it takes. It’s a great way to pass a rainy weekend afternoon, and if you go, don’t be shy about talking shop with the volunteers working the floor. They’ll fill you in on all the juicy details.

Celebrating the coolness and historical audacity that is Andersonville/​Edgewater/​Edgewater Beach. We like it here, by the lake. FREE admission!