What is the history of Carpentersville, Illinois?
Carpentersville was first settled by Charles Valentine Carpenter and his brother, Daniel. In 1837, the two brothers, en route to the Rock River, made camp along the east bank of the Fox River to wait out the spring floods that made continuing their oxcart journey impossible. They ended up staying in the area to settle what was then called to extend its tracks from East Dundee to the area and built an iron bridge with his own funds to accommodate the rail line. By 1912 Carpenter’s two companies employed 2,000 people. Star Manufacturing remained in Carpentersville until 1977. For the next hundred years, Carpentersville did not grow as rapidly as other Fox River communities which had more direct rail connections to Chicago. Until the 1950’s, Carpentersville consisted of a street grid along the Fox River centered around Main Street, which was the only highway bridge across the Fox River between Algonquin, IllinoisAlgonquin and Dundee. In the mid-1950s, Leonard W. Besinger began a subdivisi
