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Lake Forest, Illinois

18 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1906 and the latest in 1998. It stands in Shields Township. It lies in ZIP code area 60045. The Survey maps it on the Waukegan quadrangle. 19,367 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 663 feet above sea level.

Lake Forest within Lake County

On record in Lake Forest

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 12 of 20 shown

Every listing in Lake County

Population over time

4 figures

Lake Forest grew from 877 to 19,367 between 1880 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
1880877
200020,059
201019,375-684 (-3%)
202019,367-8 (-0%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 18 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

4,524 words on this township

The Past and Present of Lake County, Illinois, published 1877 names this settlement in its chapter on Shields Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

And the following persons were appointed a committee to draft articles of association, viz. : Hiram F. Mather, John H. Kedzie and H. G. Shumway. Meanwhile the Trustees appointed as aforesaid proceeded, by direction of the subscribers, to make purchases of land, the location having been determined upon at the present site of Lake Forest.

Passage source: The Past and Present of Lake County, Illinois, published 1877.

The land purchased for the association originally comprised about 1,300 acres, situated in Section 3, Township 44, and Sections 27, 28, 33 and 34, Range 12, in Lake County, lying on Lake Michigan, extending back across the Milwaukee Division of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. It was divided between the Lake Forest Association and the University afterward organized.

Passage source: The Past and Present of Lake County, Illinois, published 1877.

The first building erected in Lake Forest was the present hotel. The enter¬ prise was started by Mr. D. J. Lake. This was followed by dwellings and other buildings, until it has become a populous town and place of suburban residence.

Passage source: The Past and Present of Lake County, Illinois, published 1877.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Shields Township - it names this place 19 more 19 times.

Fires near this place

5 since 2017

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Lake Forest between 2017 and 2020, burning about 41 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Debris and open burning2
Equipment and vehicle use1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
9 April 2019Missing data/not specified/undetermined15 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources19-971
30 April 2018Debris and open burning2.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources18-1413
4 December 2017Power generation/transmission/distribution1.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources17-3964
15 December 2020Debris and open burning23 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources2020-2498
4 November 2020Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources2020-2239

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Lake County

Storms near this place

8 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Lake Forest in 8 storm reports between 2000 and 2024: 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 2 flood, 1 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
October 2001Flash FloodLake Forest$180,000no account filed
February 2024Thunderstorm WindWest Lake Forest-A photo shared via social media showed a tree downed onto a road at Lake Forest Academy. Time was estimated using radar.
June 2024Flash FloodWest Lake Forest-The northbound lane of US Rt 41 was closed between IL Rt 60 in Lake Forest and Washington St in Waukegan due to areas of flooding.
September 2018FloodWest Lake Forest-Route 41 was closed south of Route 60 due to flooding in a flood prone area under a low-lying railroad bridge.
December 2018FloodLake Forest-Minor street flooding was reported in Highland Park including Tanglewood Court, Taylor Avenue and Tennyson Lane. Storm total rainfall of 1.55 inches was measured one mile south of Highwood.
June 2011Thunderstorm WindLake Forest-Approximately 300 trees were damaged in Lake Forest with 35 trees blown down or were damaged severely enough to be removed.
June 2007Thunderstorm WindLake Forest-Trees blown down.
May 2000HailLake Forest-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Lake County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Skokie Junction0.7 miles18
Deerpath1.2 miles22
Skokie Manor1.4 miles22
Lake Bluff1.4 miles18
Kennedy2.0 miles22
Creamery Corners2.5 miles19
Melody2.6 miles23
West Lake Forest3.1 miles22

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on Lake ForestAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q575355The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 411708. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.