Willard and Dyantha Wood, who traveled from Vermont by covered wagon, founded the Village of Crete in 1836. They settled on farmland in the center of present Crete. The Woods Hotel was the first lodging built in the area for travelers on the Vincennes Wagon Trail. Willard Wood named Crete after the island mentioned in St. Paul’s journey to Rome in the Bible.

Crete’s Main Street was first known as Hubbard’s Trail in the early 1820’s when the ponies of fur trader Gurdon Hubbard marked on the path to Danville. Hubbard’s Trail became the Vincennes Wagon Trail in the 1830’s as the route for wagons from Southern Illinois and Indiana to Chicago.

The Illinois Legislature designated it as Route 1 for the first north-south highway in Illinois. In the 1920’s it became part of the Dixie Highway as the route from the Great Lakes in Florida. Today Main Street is the center of Crete’s active business district.

At first Crete was settled by New Englanders and New Yorkers who wanted better land to farm. By 1846 the German immigrants started streaming into the area to farm the prairie. Crete had three stations on the Underground Railroad beginning in the early 1840’s. Several people were active abolitionists who risked their lives to harbor slaves fleeing from the South to freedom in Canada. The runaway slaves were kept hidden in basements and fields until darkness when they were taken to the next station on the Underground Railroad.

Today Crete is known for its many antique stores and Balmoral Park. People and horses come from all over the U.S. for harness racing at Balmoral Park. Colonel Matt Winn opened the track called Lincoln Fields in 1926 for thoroughbreds. Balmoral Park is the premier track for harness racing in the Chicago area.

Crete has always been a friendly community with a rural charm that continues through today. The center of old Crete features some restored buildings from the 1880's and antique and gift shops line Main and Exchange Street.

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