Bloomingdale History

The Village of Bloomingdale traces its name and founding to a family of settlers. The Bloomingdale family settled in a grove, named Bloomingdale Grove, just east of an area known as Meacham's Grove. The brothers, Lyman, Silas and Harvey Meacham, started farming an area of 1,200 acres of land in 1833 in an area now know as Medinah. By 1837, a post office was established and in 1845 the area that is now know as the Village of Bloomingale, Roselle, and unincorporated Medinah became the third town platted in the newly formed county of DuPage, Illinois.

In 1849, the area's first permanent building, a Baptist church, was built. The church still stands today and houses a museum. Around 1873, the Chicago and Pacific Railroad came through the northern part of the newly platted town. This event brought additional settlement and retail activity to an area already graced with two boot and shoemakers, a mens' clothier and tailor shop, two carpenters, a wagon maker/blacksmith and a cheese factory. Several original buildings have been restored and still stand in an area known as "Old Town."

In the early 1900s, the village and neighboring Roselle shared library books and a fire engine, alternating their locations every six months. In 1922, Roselle disannexed itself from the Village of Bloomingdale. In 1923 a new village, the Village of Bloomingdale, incorporated and separated itself from the areas of Medinah and Roselle.

Bloomingdale remained a small farming community until the post World War II growth of the 1950s, when the population almost quadrupled from 338 residents in 1950 to 1,262 in 1960. The 2010 census reported 22,020 residents in Bloomingdale.

-some information from the 2005 Village of Bloomingdale Annual Report