Des Plaines is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 60,675. The city is a suburb of Chicago and is located just north of O’Hare International Airport. It is situated upon and is named after the Des Plaines River, which runs through the city just east of its downtown area.

Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwe (Chippewa) Native American tribes inhabited the Des Plaines River Valley prior to Europeans’ arrival. When French explorers and missionaries arrived in the 1600s in what was next the Illinois Country of New France, they named the waterway La Rivière des Plaines (English translation: “Plains River”) as they felt that trees on the river resembled European plane trees. The first white settlers came from the eastern United States in 1833, after the 1833 Treaty of Chicago was negotiated, followed by many German immigrants during the 1840s and ’50s. In the 1850s, the home in this area was purchased by the Illinois and Wisconsin Land Company along a railroad origin planned amongst Chicago and Janesville, Wisconsin. In 1852, the developers built a steam-powered mill adjoining the river to clip local trees into railroad ties. Socrates Rand after that bought the mill and converted it into a grist mill, which attracted local farmers. The Illinois and Wisconsin Railroad made its first End in the Place in the slip of 1854.

In 1857, the Chicago, St. Paul, and Fond du Lac Railroad began dispensation its route, stopping near the mill upon the Des Plaines river, where a little business section had grown up. The railroad platted the prospective town of Rand at the site. In 1859, the Chicago and North Western Railway purchased the rail line, giving the train station the name “Des Plaines”. In 1869, the Rand subdivision’s name was misrepresented to Des Plaines, and the village of Des Plaines was next incorporated.

Des Plaines was reincorporated in 1873 and elected a village board the behind year. Local brick manufacturer Franklin Whitcomb served as the first Village President.