Winnetka’s Building Blocks

Bricks from Academy Hall, 1870. Gift of Frank Pavlik

Before Winnetka’s founding, Artemas Carter developed a plan to create a great university here, which he would call Academy Hall. In order to establish the school, Carter and fellow founding fathers drafted the charter to incorporate the village on March 10, 1869.

The 1870 building was built of handmade yellow-colored bricks, known as “Cream City Bricks” due to the composition of the locally-found clay.