Here's a nifty but long-expired deal: Donate some land along the railroad, and you get to name the new depot.

That was the agreement in 1873, when the Chicago Pacific Railway built a new line from Chicago to Elgin. Any person donating land along the right of way chose the name for the train station.

"Luther Bartlett donated 40 acres of land ... and helped contribute toward the building of the station," Bartlett Historical Society Museum Curator Pam Rohleder said. "Guess which name he chose!"

It's not a tricky question. The land and the station - still standing and the third-oldest station in the Chicago area - became Bartlett.

"The station is pretty much the same as it was then," Rohleder said. "We've just had some doors and windows removed or switched and aluminum siding added."

Ironically, it was Bartlett's choice of the name "Bartlett" that forced his brother, Edwin, to make a decision that influenced the naming of another town.

Edwin Bartlett had donated land near the railway, too.

"Obviously they couldn't both be named Bartlett," Rohleder said.

So Edwin Bartlett chose "Ontarioville" - and the name stuck for at least 100 years.

In 1958, the name became Hanover Park, after Hanover, Germany, the homeland of many of the original settlers.

Local historians say the residents wanted the village name to be simply Hanover, but there was already a Hanover, Ill.

Residents settled for tacking on the "Park," proud as they were of the community's park-like setting.

-Erin Holmes

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