Arlington Heights, Illinois

Book excerpt: Arlington Heights, Illinois, began as a hodgepodge of mercantile and service ventures straddling the tracks of the Illinois and Wisconsin Railroad. Today the village center has become a model for explosive growth and redevelopment studied by other towns across the United States. Through the medium of historic photographs, this book captures the evolution of the people of Arlington Heights, from the mid-1800s to the present day. These pages bring to life the people, events, communities, and industries that helped to shape and transform Arlington Heights. With close to 200 vintage images, Arlington Heights, Illinois: Downtown Renaissance, includes the first known photograph of the community, the town's founder, and its first post office. There was rarely a dull moment in the development of this community's core-the center of village life. Over the years, it alternately blossomed and faded, and at the bottom of a long decline, Arlington Heights' cluster of businesses around the railroad tracks spun on its heel and reinvented itself.