By Larry Martin

A Brief History of the Village of Elburn, Illinois
Prepared for Boy Scout Troop 7
ÊCitizenship in the Community Merit Badge
By Larry Martin
October, 1998

The Village of Elburn is located in Blackberry Township in the County of Kane in the State of Illinois. William Lance settled here first in 1834.Ê He and his family came in a wagon drawn by eight oxen (probably from the State of New York).Ê His wife, a daughter Mary, and a younger son Charles rode in the wagon.Ê Mr. Lance and another son, John, walked all the way.Ê They settled southeast of Elburn near what is now called Johnson's Mound.Ê On a good day, they would travel twenty miles.Ê They carried provisions in their wagon, supplemented by game killed along the way. Martha Beeler, the oldest granddaughter of William Lance, was the first child born of settler families in Blackberry Township.

The second pioneer was Henry Warne, who settled on the land just west of present day Elburn and along present day Route 38.Ê He operated a tavern. His establishment was known as the Half-Way House because it was half way between Chicago and Oregon, Illinois.Ê The first Post Office, known as Swinton, was also located there.Ê The mail was brought to Elburn from St. Charles, Illinois by Joseph Glidden of barbed wire fame.Ê By 1842, there was one log cabin on the site of present day Elburn.Ê It was built by Silas Lakin in the block where today's Community Congregational Church is located. In 1853, the railroad was completed through Elburn, but the Village was then called Blackberry Station. Up to and including most of the 1950's, it was possible to board a passenger train in the morning, go to Chicago, stop at various stations along the way, and return to Elburn in the evening. In 1849, the Swinton Post Office's name was changed to Fairfield.Ê In 1854, the Post Office was moved to Blackberry Station.

In 1885, the railroad asked the Village to change the name of Blackberry Station, as its location in Blackberry Township and the location of Blackberry Center nearby caused a great deal of confusion.Ê The original name chosen was Melbourne (as in Australia), but the railroad said there were too many towns of that name already.Ê Some of the letters were dropped and the railroad accepted the name Elburn. It is believed that there is no other Elburn anywhere, although there is (or was) an Elburn Piano Company located west of the Mississippi River in Kansas or Nebraska. The first school was north of downtown on the west side of the road opposite the Catholic Cemetery.Ê In the 1890's, a school was built at the south end of First Street.Ê At first, all students from Grades 1 through 12 attended.Ê In 1930, Elburn High School was built, north of the downtown district. In 1948, Community School District #302 was organized.Ê In 1958, the Kaneland High School was built and the former Elburn High School became the Elburn Elementary School.Ê In 1984, Elburn Elementary School was closed (it is now the Elburn and Countryside Community Center) and all students were bused to the Kaneland campus on Meredith Road.Ê In 1998, a new elementary school, the Kaneland North Elementary School, was built at the corner of Anderson Road and Prairie Valley Street (south of Route 38).ÊÊ There have been a number of churches in Elburn during the last 100 to 150 years: Baptist, Methodist, Christian, Christian Science, Evangelical, and Congregational. Elburn has been very generous in providing its youth to the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Navy in all of the wars which have taken place since the time of its settlement: the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War.Ê Every Memorial Day, the names of all of the deceased veterans are read to an assembled group of people paying their respects at Blackberry Cemetery. In the early 1930's, Illinois State Route 47 was paved.Ê At one time, it was known as Sugar Grove Road and Chicken Grove Road. In the early 1950's, Elburn modernized its water system and built a sewer system which laid the grounds for growth in the Village.Ê The population, 500 to 800 residents during the period of 1920 through the 1950's, grew slowly between the 1960's and 1980's, but has doubled since the 1990 census to about 2,400 residents.Ê Two new restaurants, Papa G's and McDonald's as well as a new Post Office, are indications that Elburn is expected to grow steadily.

Information extracted from http://www.elburn.il.us/history/martinhistory.html