Blog

By Nancy Sims, Class of 2015

Editor’s note: Nancy’s story originally appeared in CAC@Home. Docent’s and volunteers contributed twenty stories to CAC’@Home this season. In case you missed them the first time, we will be reposting them on The Bridge in the following months. They are also available on the CAC website.

Walking in the Sheffield Historic District brings back childhood memories. It’s now where I give tours as a docent. The neighborhood is often considered “West Lincoln Park,” but it didn’t begin very ritzy, like its neighbor to the east.

Sheffield began as an immigrant working-class neighborhood after the Great Chicago Fire, where workers lived in brick row houses and narrow two- or three- flats. Empty lots and gangways served as play areas, and front porches were used for socializing. These early immigrants—who mostly worked along the north branch of the Chicago River and in manufacturing plants along Fullerton Avenue—created a neighborhood with schools, churches, social services and stores.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of the story. You’ll have to wait until next year to join Nancy and her fellow Sheffield Historic District docents on this popular neighborhood tour.