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Matteson Real Estate and Community Information
History
Matteson was platted in 1855 and named in honor of the tenth governor of Illinois, Joel Aldrich Matteson. The area now known as "Old Matteson" began as an agricultural trade center at the junction of two railroads, the Joliet and Northern Indiana (later known as the Michigan Central) and the Illinois Central. By the late 1880s, the Elgin Joliet and Eastern Railway was running parallel to and about a mile south of the Michigan Central. By the time of its incorporation in 1889, Matteson had two hotels, two general stores, two saloons, a wagon and harness shop, a shoe shop, a blacksmith and a grain elevator. The 1890s and early 1900s brought about village improvements that included a two-story village hall and a streetcar line running from Joliet through "downtown" Matteson to Chicago Heights. In 1913, the Lincoln Highway made the same connections along the northern border of the village.
At the close of WWII, Matteson began its development into an important retail and commercial center for the southern suburbs of Chicago. "Old Matteson" immediately expanded with the construction of 300 houses. The first shopping center, E.J. Korvette, opened in 1963, at Crawford Avenue and Lincoln Highway just beyond the northwest corner of the original village. During the following decade, close to 1500 acres of land were annexed. In 1968, I-57 was completed as far as Kankakee and in 1973, the village celebrated the opening of Lincoln Mall at the intersection of Cicero and Lincoln Highway. It was in this post-war era that the center of the village began to shift to the west commercially, as well as residentially with the opening of the Matteson Farms and Glenridge subdivisions, in 1950 and 1961, respectively. Around 1990, the post office and police station moved from Old Matteson to the "Village Commons" area and a new public library was built a few blocks east in the Apple-Oak subdivision.
The Matteson Historical Society, founded in 1975, has designated twelve sites in Old Matteson as landmarks. One of them is a barbershop that has been in operation in the same building since 1896. In the 1980s, when the Michigan Central roadbed was abandoned, the village became an active participant in the development of the Old Plank Road Trail which is now a bike/hike path. Since all of this neighborhood is within walking or biking distance of the Metra station (formerly the Illinois Central), Old Matteson has been able to maintain its historic position as a transportation hub-formerly for grain and milk, now for commuters.
