La Grange Area Historical Society's Walking Tours

Meet us where history and architecture walk in stride

Since 1972, the La Grange Area Historical Society has worked to preserve and promote the exploration of the histories of La Grange and La Grange Park. Of their many exciting and varied events, the historical society offers seven free self-guided walking tours, which you can embark on at any time, making them easy to fit into your schedule and a great way to get some exercise! The tour walking guides, available on the historical society's website, include maps, historical markers and interesting information on significant sites specific to each tour. 

Each tour is broken out by location within the village. The first tour takes you around the area east of La Grange Road, extending to Eight Avenue. Along the way, you'll find four homes designed by the revolutionary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as homes representative of vernacular architecture, meaning they were built using local materials with traditional construction methods using design elements reflective of the local culture and environment. 

You will also see the homes of individuals who were influential in local society, such as Ralph B. Hayward, who served as La Grange village president from 1925 to 1927. His home is featured on the second tour, which begins on the corner of Elm Avenue and Stone Avenue and takes you all the way to Cossitt and Waiola Avenues.

The home of another La Grange village president, that of Harley Bradford Mitchell, is a must-see stop on the third tour, which takes you down Spring and Kensington Avenues. Mitchell, who served as village president from 1905 to 1907, lived in a stately Victorian home done in the shingle style, a uniquely American architectural style. The house remains largely unaltered today!

Should you opt to take the fourth walking tour, you can see the Samuel Vial house, home to the La Grange Historical Society! This tour begins at the home, where the influential Vial family lived and remained in the family for many years before the La Grange Historical Society purchased it in 1894 as a museum and research center.


If you're interested the different styles of Victorian homes and seeing how they differ from each other, take the fifth tour, which features the only unaltered Victorian Second Empire house in the area. 

The fifth and sixth walking tours will pique the interest of ecclesiastical architecture enthusiasts. If you take the sixth tour, you'll walk by St. Xavier Roman Catholic Church, which has a floorplan based on that of an ancient Roman basilica, or take in the wonders of the Norman Gothic architecture of the Catherine Grace Lutheran church, a featured stop on the seventh tour, which has 41 stained glass windows and a pipe organ.


Whichever tour you take, you're sure to enjoy yourself and learn more about the history of the La Grange community, its buildings and its people, while getting your steps in!