Oak Forest (Illinois)

Cook County

Oak Forest [ oʊk fɔrɪst ] is a city in Cook County in the northeast of the State of Illinois. The center of Chicago, is one of the metropolitan region of Oak Forest, located 30 kilometers north of the city that is completely surrounded by populated areas. Oak Forest had with about 28,000 inhabitants as of 2000.

History

The history of Oak Forest is closely related to the former poorhouse Oak Forest Infirmary (now the Oak Forest Health Center ) connected, which was built here on state land from 1907 to 1910, after the conditions in the County Poor Farm in Dunning as unsustainable were considered. The establishment virtually formed the center, with residential areas to the west and north of it, and commercial areas along Cicero Avenue and 159th Street. To the south and south-east of the hospital, the city grew by incorporations to the present Oak Forest exit off Interstate 57 However, the city had in the 1940s, only about 600 residents outside the hospital.

The residence and its buildings was of Holabird & Roche (now Holabird & Root ) designed a major architectural firm from Chicago. At the completion of the Oak Forest Infirmary summed up the device nearly 2,000 people who were housed there because of poverty, mental illness, or alcoholism. The inmates worked partly on the surrounding farms, including the Cook County Poor Farm. 1932 - at the height of the Depression - had to set up more than 4,000 inmates, including 500 TB patients. With the availability of Social Security and other aid programs left in the 1940s, healthy people the establishment, from the 1950s waned, the importance as a TB clinic. The facility shifted to the treatment of the chronically ill, the disabled and geriatric patients. 1956 Oak Forest Institutions have been renamed to Oak Forest Hospital. Today, the Oak Forest Health Center part of the Cook County Hospital System.