The Stone Avenue Station in LaGrange, Illinois was built in 1901 by the engineering department of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (C. B. & Q) at the behest of city founder Franklin Cossitt and village attorney David B. Lyman. However it was not the first station to stand at the area of Burlington Street and Stone Avenue in La Grange, Illinois. In 1864, the C. B. & Q. Railroad laid track to cover the territory west of Chicago, thus linking the Aurora corridor with the city. Newly incorporated LaGrange built two milk depots along the line to encourage the trains to stop. While the first president of the railroad, John Van Ottrick, was quoted as saying, “It will never pay,” the “Q” was developed, and many towns were directly influenced by the convenient way to travel between western Illinois and Chicago. [1]
[1] This project was recorded by the Historic American Engineering Record, a project of the National Park Service. Drawings were prepared by Kim Barker, Michele Kenney, Andrea McCarthy, Kristin Twedt-Motier, and Kristin Willison, students at the Art Institute of Chicago Master of Science program as an entry in the 2004 Charles E. Peterson Prize contest hosted annually by HAER.