History
Bloomingdale can trace its founding to the Meacham family. In 1833, the Meacham brothers, Lyman, Silas, and Harvey Meacham started farming an area of 1,200 acres of land, which is an area now known as Medinah. By 1837, a post office was established and, in 1845, the area that is now known as the villages of Bloomingdale, Roselle, and unincorporated Medinah became the third town platted in the newly formed county of DuPage, Illinois.
In 1849, the area’s first permanent building, a Baptist church, was built. The building still stands and today houses a museum. Around 1873, the Chicago and Pacific Railroad came through the northern part of the newly platted town. This event brought additional settlement and retail activity to an area already graced with two boot and shoemakers, a men’s clothier and tailor shop, two carpenters, a wagon maker/blacksmith, and a cheese factory. Some of the original buildings have been restored and still stand in an area known as “Old Town.”
The Village’s first schoolhouse was built in 1894 at Lake and Third Streets. In 1895, the Chicago Telephone Company placed poles and wires along the Chicago and Elgin Road (Lake Street); the first cement sidewalks were laid in 1899. By 1904, automobiles were common enough that the Village established an eight-mile-per-hour speed limit on streets and drivers were required to sound a bell or gong at every crossing.
In the early 1900s, Bloomingdale and neighboring Roselle shared library books and a fire engine (purchased for $350), alternating their locations every six months. In 1923, the Village of Bloomingdale was reincorporated as a village by itself, separate from the areas of Medinah and Roselle.
The Village purchased its first marked police car, and Bloomingdale Fire Protection District 1 was founded in 1954, the same year indoor plumbing came to Village Hall. Bloomingdale’s population almost quadrupled from 338 in 1950 to 1,262 in 1960. By 1976, a special census counted the Village’s population at nearly 10,000.
Today, with a population of nearly 22,000, Bloomingdale boasts a country-like environment carefully integrated with commercial, office and retail development. As a result, the community provides a wide variety of living, working, shopping and recreational opportunities built around a carefully preserved heritage.
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