Beverly, Morgan Park Evolved Around Old Indian Trail
Robert ``Bud`` Lane, 80, recalls making frequent trips as a child down Seeley Avenue near 103d Street in Beverly Hills to view the relics of his great-grandfather DeWitt Lane`s homestead.
``You could still see some stone piers marking the foundation of his log cabin, and one of his springs that had been capped,`` Lane recalls. ``He was the first settler`` on the Blue Island ridge that now marks the Chicago neighborhoods of Beverly Hills and Morgan Park.
Norman Rexford, another early settler, coined the name Blue Island because the bluff-like ridge rises above a swamp like an island that looked blue in the haze, providing a novel geographical oasis against the flat Midwestern prairie.
The Potawatomi Indians traveled the ridge southward from their hunting grounds to a trading post in Vincennes, Ind., says Gary Sauermann, historian and past president of the Ridge Historical Society, which serves Beverly and Morgan Park.
An 1833 treaty the Indians signed with the federal government after the Black Hawk War moved them to reservations west of the Mississippi River and opened northern Illinois to pioneers. Plucky DeWitt Lane hadn`t waited for the treaty, however. He moved in and built his log cabin in 1832 while he had the best pick of the local real estate.
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articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-09-02/news/8703060774_1_morgan-park-log-cabin-scenic-ridge
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A number of years ago the Village of Tinley Park invited the Potawatamies back to Tinley Park for Thanksgiving. After we had stolen their land fair and square and evicted them to Oklahoma they became oil rich. The tribal jet flew seven of the Potawatamies to the Thanksgiving celebration. Four of them were blonde with blue eyes.
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