Publications & Sites 
Lake Forest talk on history of North Shore Line
Updated: January 22, 2013 6:45PM
LAKE FOREST — The 50th anniversary of the closing of the North Shore Line — today’s bike paths through Lake Forest and Lake Bluff — will be explored in a lecture on Sunday.
The Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society is hosting “The Open Steel Highway: The Story of the North Shore Interurban” at 3 p.m. in the Lily Reid Holt Memorial Chapel at Lake Forest College, 555 N. Sheridan Road, Lake Forest.
Railroad consultant and historian Norman Carlson will present the talk on the line’s original route from Waukegan to Highland Park through downtown Lake Bluff and Lake Forest, which began in 1898.
Later known as the Shore Line Route, fees for the line paid for the construction of Lake Forest City Hall. Railroad owners also built Ravinia Park in 1904 to generate more traffic, and extended the line from Lake Bluff to Mundelein in 1905 and to Milwaukee in 1908.
The lecture is free to members of the Historical Society and $15 for non-members. Tickets can be purchased at www.lflbhistory.org or by calling (847) 234-5253.
