Glen Ellyn

Sister cities

• Le Bouscat

History

Glen Ellyn, like the neighboring town to the east, Lombard, had its genesis in an 1833 claim by two brothers from the Finger Lakes region of New York, Morgan and Ralph Babcock. The two claimed property in a large stand of timber near present-day St. Charles Road and the East Branch of the DuPage River. The brothers also arranged for a claim for their New York neighbor Deacon Winslow Churchill, who arrived in 1834 along with some of his adult children and their families. The nascent settlement became known as Babcock's Grove, and it included property currently part of both Glen Ellyn and Lombard. Up the trail from the river to the west was a five-cornered intersection. In 1835, Daniel Fish built a cabin there, and other settlers followed. By the 1840s the intersection was called Fish's Corners and held a general store, blacksmith's forge, shops selling or repairing wagons and harnesses, and a Baptist church. Moses Stacy, a soldier in the War of 1812, arrived in 1835 and built a house south of Fish's Corners. In 1846, Stacy built at the five corners an inn, Stacy's Tavern, to serve as a halfway stop between Chicago and the Fox River Valley and a probable stop for Galena, Illinois stagecoaches on their way to Rockford, Illinois. Stacy's Tavern, now a historical monument, stands at what is now the intersection of Geneva Road and Main Street. In 1849, construction of the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad through Glen Ellyn was finished. The railroad was about a mile south of the corners. At first, trains running through the town on the railway did not stop there. A local landowner, Lewey Quitterfield Newton, made an offer to the railroad company: Newton would provide land for a right-of-way and build a depot and water tank if the railroad would require trains to stop…

Geography

The Village of Glen Ellyn is a suburb of Chicago, and it lies about due west of downtown Chicago. According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Glen Ellyn has a total area of , of which (or 97.70%) is land and (or 2.30%) is water.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  81,522
• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  74,904
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  59,044
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  58,023
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  56,239
• American Goldfinch

  Spinus tristis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  55,682
• Red-bellied Woodpecker

  Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  54,800
• Downy Woodpecker

  Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  53,995

Most recent

• M 2.9 — 2026-07-08
  21 km ENE of Kenilworth, Illinois
• M 2.6 — 2025-03-15
  6 km W of Dwight, Illinois
• M 3.1 — 2024-07-15
  2 km WNW of Somonauk, Illinois
• M 2.9 — 2015-03-25
  3 km WNW of Lake in the Hills, Illinois
• M 3.2 — 2013-11-04
  1 km SSW of Lyons, Illinois
• M 2.6 — 2013-06-10
  4 km NNE of Virgil, Illinois