From The Buffalo Trail To Muddy Waters' Final Decade At 16 South Adams
Before Westmont was Westmont, the area was open prairie inhabited by the Potawatomi until forced relocation in 1833. Two stage routes crossed the area in the 1830s — Naperville Road, originally the Buffalo Trail, and Ogden Avenue, originally the Ottawa & LaSalle Trail. The first permanent DuPage County settler, Bailey Hobson, passed through what would become Westmont in 1829 on his way to the Naperville settlement. The Illinois & Michigan Canal was authorized in the 1820s but construction didn't begin until the 1830s; the 1837 economic panic stopped the work, and many canal workers turned to farming. New Englanders who settled the area found exceptional soil; the area around Westmont became one of the most prosperous farming sections of the state, with farmers selling produce to Chicago markets just nine miles east — across a difficult swamp.
In 1840, construction began on a plank road from Chicago across the swamp; it reached Naperville by 1851 (today's Ogden Avenue / Route 34). The plank road soon became inadequate for the growing volume of farm shipments, so in 1858 local towns and villages petitioned the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad to build a branch line from Chicago to Aurora. The first train ran in 1864. The settlement was first called Bushville; the rail stop was named Gregg's Station (sometimes Gregg's Milk Station) after William L. Gregg, whose massive brickyard at the area's highest elevation employed approximately 120 Czech, Polish, and Italian immigrants and produced up to 70,000 bricks daily using Gregg's own triple-pressure press invention — a press that could withstand 100,000 pounds of force per brick. The brickyard's location at the highest elevation optimized rail loading efficiency. The eventual village name "Westmont" comes from being "the highest point of elevation on the Burlington-Northern railroad west of Chicago" — the same elevation that made Gregg's brickyard work.
The William L. Gregg House, built in the 19th century, is the oldest building in Westmont. On September 26, 1977, the Gregg House moved across the street to Westmont Park District property on Linden Street, where the Westmont Historical Society operates it today as the Gregg House Museum at 117 South Linden Avenue. The schoolhouse on the property underwent renovations for thirteen weeks in 1992-93 and was rededicated on January 23, 1993.
In 1919, real estate developer Arthur McIntosh bought land in Westmont and offered working-class Chicagoans an opportunity to own property for $5 down and small monthly installments. By 1923, his subdivision had grown to 1,800 residents — many first or second-generation Austrian, Polish, or German-Americans, plus Czech, Italian, and other Eastern European families. At first the new landowners lived in tents and shacks with neither paved streets nor utilities. They built cottages over time. The Village of Westmont incorporated on November 10, 1921, by a 41-28 vote, with approximately 400 residents. Vince Pastor was elected first Village Board President and held the position for two years. In 1922, the Westmont Police Department formed with a single officer who acted as town marshal on call 24 hours a day. During Prohibition, the village earned the nicknames "Whiskey Hill" and "Wet Mont" — people from neighboring (drier) towns frequented Westmont's taverns to participate in the area's black-market liquor trade. The working-class Catholic immigrant character of the village made for a different cultural relationship with alcohol than the Quaker-founded (Western Springs) or Anglo-Protestant-influenced (Hinsdale) communities around it.
During the next 25 years after incorporation, the village did not encourage concentrated commercial or industrial growth. It remained a commuter residence area. During the late 1940s and 1950s, some light industrial and wholesaling firms and service industries located in Westmont. Westmont High School opened in 1974. The Westmont Public Library opened in 1993. The village's defining transition came in 1973, when blues legend McKinley Morganfield — known to the world as Muddy Waters — moved from his longtime Chicago home at 4339 S. Lake Park Avenue (Kenwood) to a small house at 16 S. Adams Street in Westmont. Waters had lost his wife Geneva Wade to cancer on March 15, 1973; he gained custody of three of his children and bought the Westmont house to give the family a fresh start. Eric Clapton served as best man at his 1979 wedding to Marva Jean "Sunshine" Brooks.
During his decade in Westmont, Muddy Waters experienced what the Village of Westmont's own history page calls "his greatest success as a musician, both in terms of critical acclaim and financial income." He won three Grammy Awards while living in the village — Hard Again (1977), I'm Ready (1978), and Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live (1979). He died in his sleep at home on April 30, 1983, at age 70, of heart failure complicated by cancer. Westmont has memorialized him with a section of Cass Avenue named "Honorary Muddy Waters Way," with Muddy Waters Park on 63rd Street, and with a permanent historical exhibit at 1 S. Cass Avenue (Westmont Centre), where the Westmont Special Events Corporation maintains over 40 rare and unique artifacts including obscure photos, clothing, memorabilia, and one of his Grammy Awards. (Eddy Clearwater, another former Westmont resident and blues musician, is featured in the exhibit alongside Waters.)
Westmont's other major commercial chapter was the Beanie Babies era. Ty Inc., the company founded by Ty Warner in 1986 that produced the global phenomenon, was headquartered in Westmont from the late 1980s through the mid-2000s at 280 Chestnut Avenue — an unmarked building of blue-green curving glass at the end of a winding driveway, with no visible address or mailbox, only a "No Trespassing" sign. Throughout the late-1990s Beanie Babies craze (when Ty Inc. earned an estimated $700 million in profits in a single year, 1998), the company's headquarters was in Westmont. Warner has since donated $3 million to create Ty Warner Park in Westmont — a real, named park in the village, even though Ty Inc. itself eventually relocated to Oak Brook.
Today Westmont is 24,429 residents on 5.11 square miles in DuPage County, bordered by Oak Brook (north), Clarendon Hills (east), Darien (south), and Downers Grove (west) — entirely within Downers Grove Township. The village is one of the most ethnically diverse rebuilt suburbs on this site: roughly 64-65% White, 14-15% Asian, 7% Black, and 13-14% Hispanic/Latino, reflecting the working-class immigrant tradition that goes all the way back to McIntosh's $5-down lots. Median household income is approximately $83,600 — middle/upper-middle. About 49.3% of adults hold a bachelor's degree. Schools serving Westmont vary by address — Westmont Community Unit School District 201 (Westmont Junior High, Westmont High School) for most of the village, with parts served by Maercker District 60, Downers Grove Districts 58 and 99, and Hinsdale Township High School District 86. The Westmont Metra BNSF station at 18 W. Quincy Street is 19.4 miles west of Chicago Union Station, with peak service every 30 minutes; trains reach Union Station in 25 to 35 minutes depending on schedule.
The village's recent capital investment is Quincy Station — a five-story, 94-unit luxury mixed-use building completed in 2022 at 1 W. Quincy Street, with underground and structured parking, four floors of luxury apartments with balconies, and a fifth-floor clubhouse and terrace overlooking downtown and the Metra tracks. The Westmont Special Events Corporation coordinates more than 75 events annually — anchored by Cruisin' Nights (every Thursday June-August on Cass Avenue, averaging 350 classic cars and 2,500 guests weekly, named Chicagoland's best weekly summer car show by WGN Radio), Taste of Westmont (the four-day July festival downtown), Wicked West Fest (October-long Halloween series), Holly Days (December tree-lighting and Frosty Parade), and the Spring Fling Festival on Memorial Day weekend.
Lincoln Limo Inc serves Westmont because Westmont is what a working-class rail village looks like a hundred years later. A culturally diverse mid-density inner-ring suburb, on the BNSF, with a real cultural anchor in Muddy Waters, a quirky commercial legacy in Ty Inc., a busy festival calendar, and a different demographic profile than the wealthy enclaves around it. Reservation-based black car for the late-night downtown returns, the festival-night logistics, the BNSF station-to-home rides, the medical-appointment standing reservations, and the airport runs — same driver, same Escalade ESV, every booking, year after year.