Lived in NYC for a decade, love the city. Surprisingly Chicago area history in this series is more fun and interesting

i grew up in wayne in the1950-1964.great memories. thank you.

My grandparents used to take me and my sister to Santa's Village in the 70's. Grandparents had a house in Buffalo Grove.

I was part of the problem in the 80's with a jet boat running up and down the chain of lakes. Loved Blarney's Island!

The 16 inch barn collapsed the year after this video came out. It’s across the interstate from where my family friend Maureen lives.

A really fantastic historic overview of the Fox River area ! Appreciate your hard work going back so far into history ! TY so much Geoffrey ! Amazing the history of these places you drive / bike thru everyday.

In the 1980s I spoke with an elderly woman whose father was a DuPage County pioneer, and a direct descendant of one of Ben Franklin's brothers. She told me that as a young girl she would take Army Trail Road all the way to downtown Chicago. That portion of the road is now Randolph Street. She also told me of watching drovers drive cattle across the Des Plaines River on their way to the stock yards. It's a shame so much oral history is lost generation by generation. Years after the fact I found out that neighbors two doors down from us in Chicago were childhood friends of the Wright Brothers. Cousins saw numerous photos of them together in their house.

Great video. I love all of these Chicago area vids by Baer. I was born in Geneva hospital and grew up in West Chicago and I probably learned 100 interesting facts about these towns on the Fox that I often visited growing up. Now if someone from WTTW would only upload a higher resolution version that does Baer's excellent work justice...

Blarney Island sure has grown up. We would stop there in the early 60's after a morning's fishing up at Channel Lake. Place was held together with spit and glue, it sat on crooked pilings and if I recall correctly, the toilet was a hole in the floor. But the beer was cold and what more could you ask for?

Big motorsports fan here. I knew about meadowdale and the elgin races but never knew they had hillclimbs in algonquin, that was new to me

I partied at Blarneys Island in 1981, it seemed smaller then what I’m seeing now. Fun times !

i grew up in palatine then lived in algonquin for many years as an adult. y’all picked the same places i would have to represent the area. my mom dragged us to Haegers all the damn time. we hated it but now i wish i could go back!

except santa’s village bc it creeps me out. i hated driving past its corpse for years to get to the highway. we went all the time as kids in the 70s/early 80s. what a weird place

LOVE YOU for mentioning the Fox!  May we all be like him.

Well done. So much detail. I feel like i could go to any of these places and pass for one of the locals.

i love this videos

Love to see classic docu... Narration is good

I adore his videos.  You learn so much.

Spent countless hours on the Ravenswood and Howard lines from 1972 to 1995.

I grew up near those lotus beds. Glad to hear they're on the mind.

Wonder why they don't they have the Merf Mobile at the Volo auto museum? Mike Myers is right about Aurora, but it is like a lot of small towns built on lakes in  Ontario. The town Belleville, where I'm from, was really about life on the bay of quinte, but past 25 years or so the bay has really declined in quality. Fishing wildlife has bin effected buy pollution. Videos like this really make you reflect on your own town and make you realize the town you wanted to leave as a kid is the town you wish it still was after growing up.