Will County's Oldest Settlement
Plainfield is the oldest community in Will County: the settlement known as Walkers' Grove was established on the banks of the DuPage River by 1828, when James Walker built a sawmill there, and the "Halfway House" inn opened along the Chicago-Ottawa stagecoach road in 1834. The Village of Plainfield itself was platted immediately north of Walkers' Grove that same year, 1834, by Chester Ingersoll, and the combined settlement was known as Plainfield by 1841.
Windows From the 1834 Core to the Post-Tornado Rebuild
That 1834 downtown historic core carries a different window-opening profile than the additions built up around it over the next century and a half -- and than the homes rebuilt after August 28, 1990, when an F5 tornado, the only one on record to hit the Chicago area, tracked 16.4 miles through the Wheatland Plains subdivision and across Plainfield High School, destroying 470 homes and damaging roughly 1,000 more. A window replacement project in Plainfield's historic downtown core calls for a different approach -- matching original opening size and trim -- than one in a subdivision largely rebuilt after 1990.
Plainfield Project Options
Planning Around Plainfield's Two Building Eras
Installation method, flashing, sill condition, frame material, glass package, trim restoration, and solar exposure matter as much as the unit itself.