The Village That Came After The Country Club
In summer 1898, two Chicago Edison Co. executives — John Gilchrist and Fred Jenkins — took the Illinois Central down to Harvey, walked south to Homewood, and started looking for golf land. They wanted somewhere far enough from the city to feel like the country, near enough that members could ride out for a weekend. They found two 160-acre tracts south of what was then called Illinois Street (now Flossmoor Road). They got their Hyde Park neighbors to invest. They got several IC executives to invest, which gave the railroad a vested interest. Then they got the IC to extend passenger service one stop south — and to build a new station — to make the country club reachable.
In 1899 they incorporated two entities: the Homewood Country Club and the Homewood Land Association. The IC sponsored a contest to name the surrounding development, and the winning entry was "Floss Moor" — a Scottish phrase meaning "dew on the heather" and "gentle rolling countryside." In 1901 the railroad subdivided the land, laid out streets, installed water and sewer, planted trees, and built the first six houses just west of the tracks. That neighborhood is still called Old Flossmoor. The original train station was built in 1906; today it's the Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery, and trains still run past the patio.
The village formally incorporated in 1924. Six years before that — in 1920 — Flossmoor Country Club hosted the third PGA Championship, won by Jock Hutchison. 1923 brought the U.S. Amateur, where Bobby Jones, Francis Ouimet, and the rest of the era's top names competed. Bobby Jones held the course record for sixty years. Idlewild Country Club had opened in 1908, founded by a group that included Sears chairman Julius Rosenwald and his vice president Albert Loeb. The land they bought first — closer to the city — became Beverly Country Club instead. They wanted further out. They got Flossmoor.
A hundred years later the pattern still holds. Flossmoor's population is 9,704. Median household income is $137,768. Owner-occupancy is 95.9%. The poverty rate is 2.95%. Black professional households are now the majority — it's one of the highest Black homeownership rates in the country — and the village's "status" character has carried through the demographic transition that began in the 1990s. The schools are nationally recognized: Homewood-Flossmoor High School is a three-time Blue Ribbon winner. The country clubs are still here. The brewery is still in the original train station. The Civic Center, completed in 1929, still anchors the corner of Flossmoor Road and Sterling.
Lincoln Limo Inc serves Flossmoor because the village's logic and the service's logic match. Flossmoor families don't change cars every year, don't change houses every five years, don't chase whatever is new. They invest in things that are good and keep using them. That's what a standing reservation with the same driver and the same Escalade ESV is built to be.