Orchard Place, Illinois was a small farming community in Cook County

Cook County, Illinois

Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, just west of Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. Settled by German immigrants in the 1840s, Orchard Place became a stop on the Wisconsin Central Railroad in 1887 and received its name at that time. In 1942, Orchard Place was selected as the site of a new air base and aircraft manufacturing facility, Orchard Place Airport/Douglas Field. After the Second World War, the city of Chicago bought the facility from the United States government and converted it into a commercial airport, Chicago Orchard Field, opened in 1946. The airport was renamed in 1949 to O'Hare International Airport

O'Hare International Airport

Chicago O'Hare International Airport , also known as O'Hare Airport, O'Hare Field, Chicago Airport, Chicago International Airport, or simply O'Hare, is a major airport located in the northwestern-most corner of Chicago, Illinois, United States, northwest of the Chicago Loop...

 and has grown into the Chicago metropolitan area's primary airport and a major North American transportation hub. Today, the former Orchard Place is incorporated in Des Plaines, Illinois

Des Plaines, Illinois

Des Plaines is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It has adopted the official nickname of "City of Destiny." As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 58,720. It is a suburb of Chicago, and is next to O'Hare International Airport...

. Its legacy persists in O'Hare's airport code, , as well as in the name of Orchard Place Elementary School in Des Plaines.

External links

• "Orchard Place/Douglas Field: Its Early History." http://ohare.bensenville.lib.il.us/orchard.htm.