Homes for sale in
Bucktown.

Bucktown's settlement predates Chicago's 1833 incorporation as a town. Polish immigrants began arriving around 1831, and some settled in an area near the north branch of the Chicago River that later became known as Holstein. The neighborhood's name is generally believed to date to the 1830s, when many of the Polish settlers raised goats, and because a male goat is called a buck, the area earned the nickname Bucktown, a translation of the Polish phrase for goat prairie. Several hundred German immigrants, including tradesmen from Schleswig-Holstein, arrived in the winter of 1848, and in 1854 the town of Holstein was established, then annexed to the City of Chicago on February 13, 1863. From the 1870s to World War I, the area saw a major influx of largely Polish immigrants, and the stretch between the river and Milwaukee Avenue became known as part of Chicago's Polish Downtown.

Industry shaped the neighborhood as it grew. Clay was dredged near Webster Avenue for brickmaking, which intensified after the Great Chicago Fire, and the intersection of Armitage and Elston became an industrial hub. Beginning in the mid-1970s, a new wave of mostly middle-class, native-born residents was drawn by affordable housing, good transportation, and proximity to the Loop and lakefront, a trend that accelerated into gentrification through the 1990s and 2000s. A defining recent change came on June 6, 2015, when the first phase of The 606 opened, converting the disused, elevated Bloomingdale rail line into a 2.7-mile greenway and trail that runs through Bucktown and links it to neighboring communities.