Evanston could have easily been named Luntville or Simpson, both front-runners among the names considered for the new village in 1854. Other favorites were Orrington, University Place, Lakewood, Evansville and Evanshire.
The village fathers, i.e. the trustees of Northwestern University, wrestled with the matter and finally settled on a name in February 1854. When they submitted a plat to the Cook County recorder in July 1854, it was titled the Plan of Evanston and recorded July 27.
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PLAN
OF EVANSTON
recorded by Cook County in July 1854 |
Evans, Evansville or Evanshire would have honored NU co-founder and trustee president John Evans. He was a physician, a Methodist minister and the man so strong for the University he made the down payment and gave his personal guarantee for NU’s first purchase of property here — a 379-acre farm. Luntville or Orrington would have saluted grain merchant Orrington Lunt, the trustee and co-founder who literally found this lakeside campus site.
However, Lunt refused the honor and pushed to name it after John Evans, who also happened to be his brother-in-law. Evans himself wanted the village named Simpson, after Methodist leader Rev. Matthew Simpson. But most of the trustees were stalled between variations of Evans and Lunt.
The story goes that Margaret Gray Evans — John Evans’ wife and sister of Orrington Lunt’s wife —broke the bottleneck. She proposed naming the village after both Evans and Lunt, giving a nod to OrringTON Lunt by adding a final syllable to the name Evans. Thus, the village became EvansTON.
In 1855 the post office name was changed from Ridgeville to Evanston. It took until 1857 for the Illinois legislature to change the name of Ridgeville Township to Evanston as well.
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