Article: How Glen Ellyn got its name (and six others)

This is the year that the Village of Glen Ellyn celebrates the 175th anniversary of its founding as a settlement. However, for the first 57 years of its existence, Glen Ellyn was called something else. In fact, it had at least six other names before it became Glen Ellyn. And there's a story behind each name.

Babcock's Grove is often mentioned as the first name for our town, but that's not quite accurate. In the 1830s, Babcock's Grove didn't refer to a town, but to an area that encompassed much of what today is Lombard and the northeast part of Glen Ellyn. When our first settlers (the Churchill family) put a shovel in the ground in 1834 and declared this their new home, the only "town" was a ...

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