Wheaton is one of Chicago's massive suburbs, and I passed it every day on the train ride to my internship. It has a large and unusually elaborate courthouse, and its downtown is nothing to scoff about either. (I may revisit the latter in the future--stay tuned).
Wheaton is a city in northeastern Illinois which is the county seat of DuPage County. As of 2020, its population is 53,970.
Wheaton was established by brothers Warren and Jesse Wheaton from Connecticut, as the former claimed 640 acres of land in what became the center of the town in 1837. Other settlers soon joined them. In 1848, the brothers donated some land to the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, and the company named the newly constructed depot after them. The city was platted in 1850, with free land given to anyone who could build on it immediately, and these lots were surveyed and filed with DuPage County in 1853. In 1859, Wheaton was incorporated as a village.
Wheaton's establishment as county seat was an arduous process. In 1857, an election was held to reconsider DuPage County's seat (previously Naperville), as Wheaton was more centrally located and had the railroad. However, Naperville won by a 2:1 margin. This did little to settle matters, as relations between the two were still poor. A second election was held in 1867, which Wheaton narrowly won. The city quickly built its first courthouse at a cost of $20,000, which was dedicated on July 4, 1868. Naturally, Naperville was not pleased with this result, and they refused to turn over county records for their move to the new courthouse. This resulted in a group of Civil War veterans from Wheaton to raid the courthouse at midnight. However, some records remained, and these were left with the Cook County Recorder in Chicago. (Ironically, they were lost in the Great Fire of 1871.) Wheaton was officially proclaimed the county seat shortly after 1871.
Wheaton began to grow rapidly in the 1950s, as the Chicago area suburbanized. Its population grew from 7,389 in 1940 to 51,464 in 1990. Its growth has dwindled due to a lack of open land to build upon, however.
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