Vernon Hills 5.57

Vernon Hills is a village in Lake County, Illinois, United States, and an affluent northern suburb of Chicago. The population was 20,120 at the 2000 census, and 25,113 in 2010. Vernon Hills serves as a retail hub for its surrounding area (Libertyville, Mundelein, Lake Forest, Long Grove, Lincolnshire and Buffalo Grove).HistoryThe land that was to become Vernon Hills, founded by Richard Theodore Freese, Ron Freese, and Jim Carswell, began with the establishment of a 200acre farm in 1851. Use of the land remained relatively static until the 1950s, when part of it was purchased for a residential community and golf course; the development was the first use of the name "Vernon Hills." On June 16, 1958, the village officially incorporated with 123 residents and 125 houses in a single subdivision built by Quinn Hogan and Barney Loeb. During these times, the village and police department were run from a local motel until 1971 when village trustees bought two portable buildings. It saw steady but slow growth until the annexing of a plot of land near the corner of IL-60 and IL-21 in 1971, which led to the building of 1200000sqft Hawthorn Center. By 1980, the village's population had grown to almost 10,000 residents, and by 2000, it had surpassed 20,000.