1834
The Vial cabin
Joseph Vial built a log cabin near Wolf and Plainfield roads in 1834. He also ran a hotel on the stagecoach line, and his family helped found the Lyonsville Congregational Church.
Source: Wikipedia: Burr Ridge, Illinois
Land shaped by glaciers
Burr Ridge’s gently rolling hills were carved by glaciers at the end of the last ice age, and most of the village lies on the Valparaiso Moraine. Flagg Creek, a tributary of the Des Plaines River, winds through town.
Settlers on the stagecoach line
Joseph Vial built his log cabin near Wolf and Plainfield roads in 1834 and ran a hotel on the stagecoach line. After 1848, area farmers shipped their goods to Chicago along the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and a small settlement of German farmers lived along Flagg Creek by the 1880s. Robert Vial’s 1856 home, now restored by the Flagg Creek Heritage Society, still tells that story.
From Harvester to Burr Ridge
International Harvester’s 414-acre experimental farm arrived in 1917, and it’s where the company tested the Farmall tractor. Residents of the Hinsdale Countryside Estates incorporated as Harvester in 1956. In the 1940s Denver Busby bought 190 acres that became the Burr Ridge dairy farm, and he later launched Burr Ridge Estates with 5-acre home sites. In 1961 they all came together under the Burr Ridge name, a nod to the area’s bur oaks.
A village grows up
The population more than doubled to 790 by 1963 and topped 2,200 by 1975. Neighborhoods like Carriage Way, where the original farmhouse still stands at the entrance, and Braemoor, added in 1971, filled in the farmland that once surrounded the village.
Source: Wikipedia: Burr Ridge, Illinois · Flagg Creek Heritage Society: Robert Vial House · Flagg Creek Heritage Society