North Central College in the News
North Central College professor of history featured in Daily Herald
Oct 27, 2022
Ann Keating shared how the railroad age shaped the suburbs we know today
You can’t tell the history of Chicago’s suburbs for the last 150 years without talking about the railroads. The first railroad, the Galena & Chicago Union, rolled into the area in 1848. It was along this Galena Line that the very first railroad communities emerged.
Ann Keating, Dr. C. Frederick Toenniges Professor of History at North Central College, interviewed with the Daily Herald, where she shared that suburbs were shaped by the railroads fanning out like spokes from Chicago.
“That really defined regional suburban development from the mid-1800s through the 1920s when the Model T and trucks came along, and that’s how the story changes there,” said Keating.
