Homes for sale in
West Town.

In its early decades West Town was settled by German and Scandinavian immigrants who lived in the area's north and northwestern sections, and Wicker Park became the home of Chicago's wealthy Northern European merchants, who built large mansions on streets like Hoyne, known then as Beer Baron Row. By the end of the 19th century the area was absorbed into Polish Downtown, the city's oldest and most prominent Polish settlement, centered on the Polonia Triangle at Division, Milwaukee, and Ashland. Ukrainian immigrants began arriving in the late 1890s and established St. Nicholas Parish in 1906, completing their cathedral by 1915 and anchoring what became Ukrainian Village. Polish immigration surged again after World War II, when as many as 150,000 Poles arrived between 1939 and 1959 as Displaced Persons, and Division Street earned the nickname Polish Broadway.

Author Nelson Algren lionized the Division Street strip in books like The Man with the Golden Arm and Never Come Morning, living at 1958 West Evergreen Avenue from 1959 to 1975. Construction of the Kennedy Expressway, completed in 1960, displaced residents and frayed the Polish-American institutional fabric, and Latino families displaced by urban renewal elsewhere moved in, with Latinos rising from under 1 percent of West Town's population in 1960 to 39 percent by 1970. After a 1970s low, affordable-housing efforts in the 1980s coincided with an influx of artists drawn by cheap loft space, easy Loop access, and a gritty urban feel, sparking decades of gentrification. The opening of the 606's Bloomingdale Trail in 2015 further accelerated rising property values across the Near Northwest Side.