The Streetcar Suburbs is the definitive history of the Parks Area. It was written by James Jacobsen of History Pays! in 1997 as a study to qualify two areas within the Parks for the National Register of Historic Places. Those designations were granted that year. The work remains a most comprehensive history of how early suburbs sprouted in the nineteenth century and the impact of streetcars and later, automobiles, on suburban development. The Parks District has been called “one of the most well preserved streetcar suburbs in the Midwest.”

 

This is the fourth edition, revised and updated in 2020.