Lombard

Lombard: Maple Street Chapel

Lombard, village, DuPage county, northeastern Illinois, U.S. A suburb of Chicago, it lies 20 miles (30 km) west of downtown. Founded in 1833 and originally known as Babcock’s Grove (for the first settlers, Ralph and Morgan Babcock), it was renamed in 1868 for Josiah Lombard, a Chicago banker who built several houses in the village. Known as the “Lilac Village,” Lombard holds an annual (May) lilac festival in Lilacia Park, which contains many varieties of the flowering shrub. The village is mainly residential, with some light manufacturing and services. It is the seat of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (1913) and the National University of Health Sciences (1906; originally founded as the National College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa), which relocated from Chicago in 1963. Cartoonist Harold Gray resided in the village for a time, and his family’s home there was the model for the mansion in his Little Orphan Annie comic strip. Inc. 1869. Pop. (2000) 42,322; (2010) 43,165.