Elgin

Fire Barn No. 3

Built for horse-drawn apparatus in 1896, in anticipation of city growth, Barn No. 3 was designed by Smith Hoag. It reflects the turn-of-the-century "Storefront Style" of fire barn architecture. Designated a local landmark in 1992.

Marker is at ...

Elgin Milk Condensing Company

Gail Borden, pioneer in the food preservative industry, established a milk condensing plant on this site in 1865. His discovery incorporated a process by which water was evaporated from milk, and sugar added as a preservative. This process, patented in ...

Elgin National Watch Company

From 1866 to 1966 this site was occupied by the Elgin National Watch Company. This was the first watch factory built west of the Alleghenies and grew to become the world's largest. During its lifetime over 60 million 'Elgin' watches ...

Elgin Road Races

This marker is along the “south leg” of the Elgin road races. Beginning in 1910, many leading drivers and mechanics competed here in grueling tests of speed and endurance that contributed to the development of the modern automobile.

Manufacturers were attracted ...

The Elgin & Belvidere Electric Company/Rebirth of the Elgin & Be

Upper:

The Elgin & Belvidere Electric Company

The Elgin & Belvidere interurban line carried passengers and freight between its named endpoints for more than two decades, until growth in private auto ownership, better roads, and the Depression drove the ...

Sinking of the Lady Elgin

The loss of the sidewheel steamship Lady Elgin was one of Lake Michigan’s most tragic maritime disasters. On September 8th, 1860, the ship, returning to Milwaukee from Chicago, sank following a collision nine miles off Winnetka, Illinois. Milwaukee’s Irish Union ...