Homes for sale in
Old Town.

Old Town began in the 1850s, when German and Luxembourgish Catholic immigrants settled the marshy meadows north of North Avenue and farmed cabbage, celery, and potatoes, giving the area its early nickname, the Cabbage Patch. Community life centered on St. Michael's Church, Chicago's oldest German parish, founded in 1852, whose towering brick church was completed in 1869 with a steeple that briefly made it among the tallest structures in the city. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed nearly all of the neighborhood's wooden houses and gutted St. Michael's interior, though the church's brick walls stood and the building was fully restored by 1873, leaving it as one of only seven structures to survive within the fire's path. Residents rebuilt with small frame cottages until a city ordinance banned further wood construction, after which larger brick and stone rowhouses, Italianate and Queen Anne homes, and apartment buildings filled the eastern blocks.

By the 1940s the neighborhood had become known as Old Town, and residents formed the Old Town Triangle Association in 1948 to repair deteriorating buildings and promote the area, founding the Old Town Art Fair that same year as one of the country's earliest juried fine-art fairs. The neighborhood became the Midwest's center of bohemian and counterculture life in the 1950s and 1960s, with inexpensive Victorian storefronts drawing artists, a folk-music revival, and counterculture along Wells and North Avenues. The Second City opened at 1616 North Wells Street in December 1959, growing into one of the most influential comedy institutions in the English-speaking world. The Triangle's preservation efforts culminated in its 1977 Chicago Landmark designation and 1984 listing on the National Register of Historic Places.