Fullersburg's Legendary Past

"The Potawatomi village of Sauganakka encompassed what is present day Oak Brook from the 1700's to mid-1830's. Early settlers traded with and wrote about the Native American dwellings in Fullersburg north of Salt Creek along York Road." (Fullersburg Chronicles, Valerie Spale and Donald Fuller)

"In an interview shortly before she passed away, Mrs. Graue told how the mill ground whole wheat, white and rye flour... . She remembered Indians living in huts on the north side of the creek, on a clearing east of York Road; how they would wander over to the Graue's place when the syrup was boiled down, and how the family would always give them some of it spread over corn cakes." (Village on the County Line, Hugh Dugan, 1949)

"Little concrete evidence of the Indian occupation of DuPage County is to be found today, but four major Indian villages are believed to have existed in the area in the early 1800's... . One of the major villages lay along Salt Creek, just south of present Elmhurst. To the north of it were two camps and a signal station; to the south, two chipping stations and a mound." (DuPage County, a Descriptive and Historical Guide, Marion Knoblauch, 1951)

"On the property now owned by the forest preserve, the Potawatomie tribe assembled a major village that included a chipping station and ceremonial mounds. Today's Ogden Avenue as well as Spring, Plainfield, and Joliet Roads were built over ancient Indian trails."

(Images of America: Hinsdale, Sandra Bennett Williams, 2013)

"By 1800 the Potawatomi had 6,000 people in fifty major villages, from Milwaukee around the bend of Lake Michigan to St. Joseph. In DuPage there were four major villages: one near Oak Brook on the Salt Creek... ." (DuPage Roots, DuPage County Historical Society, 1985)

* Many variations exist in the spelling of Potawatomie, which means "keepers of the fire."

Sue Devick, editor, Fullersburg Historic Foundation, director.