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Libertyville is a village in Libertyville Township, Lake County, Illinois, United States. It is located west of Lake Michigan, approximately 40 miles north of the Chicago Loop. As such, it is part of the United States Census Bureau's Chicago combined statistical area (CSA). It is bordered by Gages Lake and Gurnee to the north, Vernon Hills to the south, Mundelein to the west, and Grayslake to the northwest. The eastern portions of the village border Mettawa, unincorporated Waukegan and Lake Forest, and part of Knollwood CDP. Its 2020 census population was 20,579.
History
thumb|[[St. Sava's Serbian Orthodox Seminary|Saint Sava Serbian Orthodox Monastery Church is the former burial site of Peter II of Yugoslavia, who until 2013 was the only European monarch buried on U.S. soil.]]
The land that is now Libertyville was the property of the Illinois River Potawatomi Indians until August 1829, when economic and resource pressures forced the tribe to sell much of their land in northern Illinois to the U.S. government for $12,000 cash, an additional $12,000 in goods, plus an annual delivery of 50 barrels of salt.
Pursuant to the treaty, the Potawatomi left their lands by the mid-1830s, and by 1835 the future Libertyville had its first recorded non-indigenous resident, George Vardin. Said to be a "well-educated" English immigrant with a wife and a young daughter, Vardin lived in a cabin located where the Cook Park branch of the Cook Memorial Public Library District stands today. Though he apparently moved on to the west that same year, the settlement that grew up around his cabin was initially known as Vardin's Grove.
In 1836, during the celebrations that marked the 60th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the community voted to name itself Independence Grove. 1837 brought the town's first practicing physician, Jesse Foster, followed quickly by its first lawyer, Horace Butler, for whom Butler Lake is named.
Libertyville's most prominent building, the Cook Mansion, was built in 1879 by Ansel Brainerd Cook, very close to the spot where Vardin's cabin was built in the 1830s. Cook, a teacher and stonemason, became a prominent Chicago builder and politician, providing flagstones for the city's sidewalks and taking part in rebuilding after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The two-story Victorian mansion served as Cook's summer home as well as the center of his horse farm, which provided animals for Chicago's horsecar lines. The building was remodeled in 1921, when it became the town library, gaining a Colonial-style facade with a pillared portico. The building is now a museum with furnishings of the period and other relevant displays. It is operated by the Libertyville-Mundelein Historical Society.
The community expanded rapidly with a spur of the Milwaukee Road train line (now a Metra commuter line) reaching Libertyville in 1881, resulting in the incorporation of the Village of Libertyville in 1882, with John Locke its first village president. and the village board mandated brick to be used for reconstruction, resulting in a village center whose architecture is substantially unified by both period and building material.
thumb|250px|right|[[Adlai Stevenson II's home in Libertyville, IL (now Mettawa, IL)]]
Samuel Insull, founder of Commonwealth Edison, began purchasing land south of Libertyville in 1906. He eventually acquired , a holding that he named Hawthorn-Mellody Farms. He also bought the Chicago & Milwaukee Electric line (later the Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee), which built a spur from Lake Bluff to Libertyville in 1903. When Insull was ruined by the Great Depression, parts of his estate were bought by prominent Chicagoans Adlai Stevenson and John F. Cuneo. Peter II lay in state in the Royal Chapel in Dedinje before his burial in the Royal Family Mausoleum at Oplenac on May 26, 2013.
Geography
According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Libertyville has a total area of , of which (or 96.19%) is land and (or 3.81%) is water.
The Des Plaines River forms much of the eastern boundary of the village. Other bodies of water include Butler Lake, Liberty Lake, and Lake Minear.
Libertyville's main street is Milwaukee Avenue (Illinois Route 21). The main automobile route to Chicago is via Interstate 94 (the Tri-State Tollway and the Edens Expressway); Chicago's Loop is approximately 45 minutes away. The main Metra rail station sits at the northern edge of downtown off Milwaukee Avenue, and serves the Milwaukee District North Line running from Union Station in Chicago to Fox Lake. The same line is served by another Metra station at Prairie Crossing, near the boundary of Libertyville and Grayslake. Prairie Crossing station also serves Metra's North Central Service, with service from Union Station to Antioch.
Major streets
- 20px Tri-State Tollway
- 20px Milwaukee Avenue
- Lake Street
- 20px Buckley Road/Peterson Road
- 20px Park Avenue
- Midlothian Road
- Winchester Road
- Butterfield Road
- St. Mary's Road
- Golf Road
Surrounding areas
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: Gages Lake / Gurnee
: Grayslake 20px 30px 20px Waukegan
: Mundelein 30px 30px Green Oaks / Knollwood
: Mundelein 20px 30px 20px Mettawa
: Vernon Hills
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