In July 1831, Joseph Naper arrived at the west bank of the DuPage River with his

family and friends to found what would be known as Naper's Settlement.[8] Among
those original settlers were Naper's wife Almeda Landon, his brother John with
wife Betsy Goff, his sister Amy with husband John Murray, and his mother Sarah.
Their arrival followed a nearly two-month voyage across three Great Lakes in the
Naper brothers' schooner, the Telegraph. Also on that journey were several fami
lies who remained in the still raw settlement that would become Chicago, includi
ng that of Dexter Graves[9] who is memorialized in Graceland Cemetery by the wel
l-known Lorado Taft statue "Eternal Silence" (also known as "the Dexter Graves M
onument").
By 1832, over one hundred settlers had arrived at Naper's Settlement. Following
the news of the Indian Creek massacre during the Black Hawk War, these settlers
were temporarily displaced to Fort Dearborn for protection from an anticipated a
ttack by the Sauk tribe. Fort Payne was built at Naper's Settlement, the settler
s returned and the attack never materialized. The Pre-Emption House was construc
ted in 1834, as the Settlement became a stage-coach stop on the road from Chicag
o to Galena. Reconstructions of Fort Payne and the Pre-Emption House stand as pa
rt of Naper Settlement outdoor museum village, which was first established by th
e Naperville Heritage Society and the Naperville Park District in 1969 to preser
ve some of the community's oldest buildings.[9]
In 1855 Sybil Dunbar came to Naperville as its first recorded black female resid
ent; she died in 1868 and was buried in Naperville Cemetery on Washington Street
.[10] A commemorative marker honoring her was placed in the cemetery in 2015.[10
]
After DuPage County was split from Cook County in 1839, Naper's Settlement becam
e the DuPage county seat, a distinction it held until 1868. Naper's Settlement w
as incorporated as the Village of Naperville in 1857, at which time it had a pop
ulation of 2,000. Reincorporation as a city occurred in 1890.
On April 26, 1946, Naperville was the site of one of the worst train disasters i
n Chicago history. Two Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad trains, the Advan
ce Flyer and the Exposition Flyer, collided 'head to tail' on a single track jus
t west of the Loomis Street grade crossing. The accident killed 45 and injured a
pproximately 127 passengers and/or crew members.[11] This event is commemorated
in a metal inlay map of Naperville on the southeast corner of the Nichols Librar
y's sidewalk area.[12] In 2012 author Chuck Spinner published The Tragedy at the
Loomis Street Crossing which details the events of the tragedy and gives the st
ories of the 45 persons who perished.[13] On April 26, 2014, a memorial entitled
Tragedy to Triumph was dedicated at the train station. The sculpture by Paul Ku
hn is dedicated not only to the crash victims but also to the rescuers at the cr
ash site.[14]
A predominantly rural community for most of its existence, Naperville experience
d a population explosion beginning in the 1960s and continuing into the 1980s an
d 1990s, following the construction of the East-West Tollway (now known as the R
onald Reagan Memorial Tollway) and Interstate 355 (originally known as the North
-South Tollway, now the Veterans Memorial Tollway). It has nearly quadrupled in
size as the Chicago metropolitan area's urban sprawl brought corporations, jobs,
and wealth to the area.[9]
The March 2006 issue of Chicago magazine cites a mid-1970s decision to make and
keep all parking in downtown Naperville free, in order to keep downtown Napervil
le "alive" in the face of competition with Fox Valley Mall in Aurora and the sub
sequent sprawl of strip shopping malls. Existing parking meters were taken down,
parking in garages built in the 1980s and 1990s is free, and parking is still a
vailable on major thoroughfares during non-peak hours.[9]

Naperville marked the 175th anniversary of its 1831 founding in 2006. The annive
rsary events included a series of celebrations, concerts and a balloon parade.[1
5]