Dunning, Chicago
Description
Dunning is one of 77 officially designated community areas of the city of Chicago, Illinois. Dunning also is a neighborhood located on the Northwest Side of the city.The neighborhood is home to Wilbur Wright College and the Eli's Cheesecake factory.It is also the location of the Chicago-Read Mental Health Center, formerly known as Cook County Insane Asylum and commonly referred to, in its day, as simply "Dunning."HistoryBeginningsIn 1851 this remote prairie location seemed ideal for Cook County's plans to erect a poor farm and asylum for the insane. The county purchased from Peter Ludby 160 acres hemmed in by Irving Park Road and Narragansett, Montrose, and Oak Park Avenues. Both facilities were housed in a three-story building situated atop a ridge.Residents of the poor farm lived with their families growing vegetables, washing their clothes, and attending school on the premises. After 1863 the institution also admitted tuberculosis patients. The county built a separate building for the insane asylum in 1870. The construction of two more buildings in the 1880s added enough space to accommodate the more than 1,000 patients.Following the Civil War, Andrew Dunning purchased 120 acres just south of the county property to start a nursery and lay the groundwork for a village. He set aside 40 acres for the settlement, but proximity to the insane hospital kept settlers away.Initially transportation links were poor. Although trains brought employees and commuters from the city, visitors had to walk two and a half miles from the depot to the county farm. After a single three-mile track was extended to the facilities in 1882, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul “crazy train” brought patients, supplies, and medicines. The county built a station, naming it for Dunning.
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