Saturday, September 08, 2007

Chicago area's new expressway--The Jane Addams

Some Chicago area expressways are named for some famous people, such as John F. Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson, Ronald Reagan, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, for instance.

Some are named for people for the most part few have ever heard of, folks like Dan Ryan, Bishop Louis Henry Ford, Robert Kingery, and William G. Edens.

The top group has a new member: The Northwest Tollway, which is what Interstate 90 from the Chicago city limits to the Wisconsin state line is known as, will soon be called the Jane Addams Expressway. It's the first Chicago area expressway named for a woman.

Addams was a pioneering social worker from northwestern Illinois who graduated from Rockford College, before founding Hull House on Chicago's West Side. Jazz legend Benny Goodman played in a Hull House band as a boy.

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