Edgewater is a Chicago community on the city’s North Side with the second highest population density of any neighborhood in the city. Located about seven miles north of downtown Chicago, Edgewater offers a diverse, eclectic retail corridor featuring award-winning restaurants, services, and shops all with a close knit neighborhood feel. Edgewater has a population of 62,000 residents in an area bounded by the Lake, Foster, Ravenswood and Devon. The name Edgewater originated with developer John L. Cochran, who began creating a small town here in 1880. By 1910, the name Edgewater was being used through the area. Today, Edgewater is composed of several neighborhoods including Andersonville.
History
Immigrant Swedish farmers started moving north into what was then a distant suburb of Chicago. In the 1850’s the area north of Foster and east of Clark was a large cherry orchard, and families had only begun to move into the fringes of what is now Andersonville. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, wooden homes were outlawed in Chicago. Swedish immigrants, who could not afford to build homes of stone or brick, began to migrate north of the northern boundaries of the city. Swedes continued to migrate to the community and the neighborhood of Andersonville was established. In 1976, a Swedish American Museum that had been in a planning stage for over fifty years was finally opened to the public. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden attended the opening. It’s current location is at 5211 N. Clark.

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